Staring at the Stars is Staring Backwards into Time
by Zagzagael
Summary: An alternate universe exploration for Tara's story. The fic opens at the beginning of Season 3 when Jax and Gemma turn on her. What if she had not stayed?
1. Chapter 1

_"You need to get away from me."_

She has tried. It failed colossally.

_"You don't belong here."_

She listens to her worst fear in his voice. Where does she belong?

_"We are NOT your family."_

She has no family.

When he finally finds enough venom to fill his words with, to bite into her, teeth touching bone, to paralyze her, to begin the slow and deadly decomposition of her feelings for him, she does the only thing she has ever done. The only thing she can do. The one thing she promised him she would not do. She runs. Not very far, but far enough.

There really is no other choice. After she helps Gemma and Nate, after the horrible hour in the assisted care home, after Gemma steals her car and she has to ride pinion behind her poisonous lover, her own hands betray her as she holds on tight. And after Gemma's black heart skips a beat, she's needed again. But when she stands shaking, and the ambulance pulls out of the Teller-Morrow lot, and Jax follows on his bike, she does not.

She goes home to the house her father died in. Alone.

She holds her fisted hands between her breasts to protect herself, shield her own aching heart.

But, of course, the next day in the hospital, Gemma drives her pointed words through her ribs. The truth is a weapon, they do blame her for Abel's kidnapping. That night, she shoves boxes and carefully folded linens off the couch, lies down, and tosses and turns with the injury. Could she have thrown herself bodily in between Cameron and Abel? Taken a bullet? Should she have? She feels guilty for so many things, adding a stolen baby to the scales is nothing. She piles it on.

Her dead father's house is as cold and empty as she feels. She sleeps through the night. Sleeps into the next day. Rouses at sunset. The hysterical pregnancy is over. She wakes bleeding, rolls over onto her back, the hot slick liquid ebbs out of her body, pools beneath her. She can feel the warmth seep into the cushion. She wants it to stain.

She eats half a dozen scrambled eggs. Drains a pot of coffee at eight in the evening, doctors the last cup with Irish Cream, and sits down with her laptop to draft a letter of apology to Margaret and St. Thomas. She wanders the rooms, holds the ghosts at bay. When the morning sun rises she stands on the front stoop, breathes in the air, watches the dawn of the new day.

She tries to fashion a new shape to her life. But she is at a loss to what that shape should be.

She strips her father's house of every last stick of furniture, every last box of paper, and then she strips the house itself of paint and carpet. She wants to sell, move downtown into something vintage, something haunted by other people's ghosts. Or move uptown, something shiny and sterile, a place ghosts could never linger long. She avoids men, makes no friends. She works at work and works at home. The days pass. She counts down months on her fingers. She is not surprised that Jax doesn't come for her, but she is surprised that it's her life she is mourning and not her love. She still comes awake from a dead sleep hearing motorcycles, she avoids the Teller-Morrow part of town, and cannot bear to wear anything that smells of leather - jackets, shoes, bags.

Her personal year of living dangerously is behind her. It has very nearly killed her and in her darker moments she believes that, maybe, she is dead.

* * *

She pulled back the green curtain, the metal rings clattering loudly along the track set in the emergency room ceiling. A man lay on the gurney, his back to her, curled around his body, in obvious pain. Standing beside him, one hand on his trembling shoulder was Chibs Telford.

In a moment that seemed to combust beneath her feet, tied to the stake, she quickly looked back to the patient, blond hair? No. Black.

She closed her eyes. When she opened them, she allowed herself to meet Chibs' gaze and the two of them looked at one another over the other man's slow-motion writhing. She schooled her face but she knew it was too late, she had betrayed herself to him. He cocked one eyebrow and tipped his head, studying her in the quiet way he had, the subtle presence she had forgotten. If he was as surprised as she was, he wasn't going to show it. She knew he was going to follow her lead. But she had no place left to lead anyone, her life a dead-end.

"Doc," he finally said, the thick Scottish accent, the familiar nickname.

Her stomach clenched and she curled her upper lip between her teeth, squinting back dry tears. Of all of them, him. Seeing any one of them, with the exception of Jackson, of course, would have been easier than facing this man. Flashes of bleeding bodies, field dressing together, shoulder to shoulder. His own blood pooling around him as she knelt in it, laying her head on his chest listening, praying, for a heartbeat. Sitting vigil at his concussed bedside. They had shared experiences - fear horror trauma - with one another that had had nothing to do with any of the others.

She had the patient's triaged information on the digitized pad in the crook of her elbow. She looked down at it, a quick glance, and wondered if there would have been any way she could have read between the cursory notes and known; taken a lunch break, a coffee break, a breather leaning against the cold tile wall in the bathroom, hands on knees. But no, it would have been impossible and in one part of her heart she knew that. Knew sooner than later she would encounter one of them. It just so happened to be sooner than she was ready. And maybe she would never really be ready. Maybe it was long past time to talk to Margaret about that transfer.

She watched as he kept his gaze locked to hers, patting the man gently, with the surety and reassurance she found herself suddenly remembering, the way one will remember forgotten lyrics when the music accompanies the song. Then he took two long strides around the end of the bed and held out his hand. She recoiled slightly from the gesture, confused, was he offering her something? Reaching to take something? Then she laughed, nervous, he wanted to shake her hand. Put her at ease. So Chibs. The consummate gruff gentleman in leather and knives. She reached out and he had her hand in between both of his, and he was saying something. But it was impossible to listen. Some kind of electric shock had moved through her at his touch, her ears were ringing with it. She looked down at their joined hands. He had dried blood staining his skin, matting his arm hair, up past his wrists. She sighed. He let go and stepped back.

"Just here, then," he said, walking back towards the man's side, gently urging him onto his back.

It was all too familiar, too horrifyingly familiar. "I see," she said, mentally shaking herself, a hand to her brow. "What happened," she paused, "or should I ask?"

He frowned at her, then smoothed out the expression with his fingers combing through his goatee. "Course you can ask. Eejit was using a grinding wheel to cut a chain and the damned blade come off and caught him just under the ribs. Here." He opened the man's shirt, a wife-beater sliced ragged beneath it, folding the material back to reveal a shop towel, soaked and stained with blood, taped to his skin. "Tha's above my pay grade."

She looked away from the Teller-Morrow patch sewn into the chest pocket. "Looks like you did a good job stopping the bleeding, though," she said, avoiding Chibs' gaze now. That was the key, don't look at him, don't engage.

Quickly, efficiently, she set the digitizer down and began to work. She could feel Chibs watching her, anticipating what she needed, moving things into place just short of handing her instruments with his bare hands. She could have called for a nurse or one of the ERTs, should have, but she didn't. She handed him a blue plastic basin and indicated the sink and he filled it with warm water, returning with it sloshing, and he began using a large absorbent pad to soak off the dressing sticky with drying blood. He worked in tandem with her, pulling the oily shop towel free of the ragged wound. They both simultaneously grimaced. Chibs had a fresh trauma-sorb pressing below the flap of skin and she handed him a syringe of water, unsurprised as he expertly irrigated the injury. Then she began to numb the area.

"You okay?" she asked the patient and he nodded, eyes closed.

She turned to Chibs, eyebrows raised. The patient was either drunk or chemically altered. "Did we do that?" she asked him, wondering if he had been medicated by triage. He shrugged. She shook her head and continued working. Stitching methodically. The industrial clock on the wall clicking the seconds, the sounds of other patients, nurses, paramedics, a child crying, machines buzzing and beeping all faded as she worked. She focused on the neat row of stitches she was tying, and as she neared the end of the wound, fingertips holding edges pushed together, she finally allowed herself to see their four hands working in unison. Her fingers gloved in white, his stained in red. She began to dress the repair.

"You should wash your hands, Filip." She nodded to the sink.

"Aye," he answered, turning them splay-fingered. "They're a right mess. That was probably not the best idea."

"I'm sure it's fine. You might want to find out if _he's_ clean, though. Maybe."

She stripped off her gloves, stepping back and she nearly tripped into him. A quick hand on her waist, steadying her, and she felt the fission of electricity again. She sidestepped awkwardly but he seemed to pay that no attention and then there was a breathable space between them. She picked up the digitizer, tapping on the screen with the stylus, listening to Chibs' voice and not his words as he spoke to the man in the bed. The brogue, the cadence, washed through her, another forgotten memory.

She looked over at him and with the slight turning of her face, he glanced up immediately. "He's actually really lucky. This could have been fatal," she said. "It could have killed him."

"That what fatal means?" Chibs asked, again with the cocked eyebrow.

His dry humour, like a name just there on the tip of her tongue. She blushed, smiling then laughing and he joined her.

"So, why you pulling an ER round, Doc?" he asked, stuffing gauze into the bloody water basin, moving everything over to a wheeled trolley.

"Um," she hesitated. "Staffing. You know." She looked away from the lie, imagined telling him the truth. _This is the only place where I can think because I can think of anything except Jackson Teller, and the MC, dead men and women, my own guilty hands. So I spend hours here, picking up extra shifts, working where I'm needed but not necessary. My hands can heal here. I can wash the blood off. I can numb myself by staying busy and that numbness is what I need. If I'm home I'll self-medicate and wake up on the floor of the bathroom drowning in puke and tears. It's getting better but some days I still feel as though I'm crawling up a mountain of glass on my belly. And it's not a broken heart that cuts me - it's my broken life._

She stood at the furthest possible edge of the curtained exam room, wanting to bolt, making herself breathe through that impulse. He was watching her, again with the serious gaze cutting into her, a lancing scalpel.

"Long time," he said simply.

She shook her head sideways. Yes, no? She watched him glance around, looking for something, then settle on her.

"Is that a pen?" he asked, pointing at the pocket of her lab coat.

She was confused, patting at it. "Uh, yeah. Yes. It is." He motioned for her to hand it to him and she did.

He grabbed an unopened packet of gauze and bent over the trolley writing.

She began talking, methodical yet with a tremble in her voice. "I would tell you how to care for that but I know that you know. I'm sending something for pain over to the pharmacy. Again, something I'm sure you guys have covered but it would look strange if I didn't. All that sewing. I'm also prescribing an antibiotic. Make sure he takes the full dose. Stitches out in ten days. Watch for weeping."

"Hear that, boyo? Don't be crying like a wee girl," Chibs told the man in the bed, straightening from what he had been doing. Walking over to her, one hand on her elbow, he steered her out of the curtained enclosure, stopping against the edge of it. In the bustling St. Thomas Emergency Room he somehow created a private space for the two of them to stand in. He ripped the gauze package, handed her part of the paper wrapping, balling the rest in his hand.

"There's my number. Not a burner, right. My mobile. You ever need anything, Tara, anything at all. You call me."

She took it from him, speechless, words dripping away from her like tears.

"And eat something, doll. You're too thin. But at least I saw you smile. Tha's good." Without warning he leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. Then he turned back with purposeful strides, had the patient on his feet, a firm hand under his arm, and the two of them stagger-walked away. She stepped aside as they passed her and although she waited, not sure if she wanted him to, he didn't look back.

In the bathroom, she steadied herself on the rim of the porcelain sink, bending towards the mirror. Was she too thin? She could hardly bear to look at the ghost girl reflected back at her. Her hair was mussed just behind her ear, pulled messily out of her French twist. She pressed it back flat against her head and remembered his hand, just there, holding her fast while he kissed her goodbye. Or, perhaps, hello.


	2. Chapter 2

Her pager. And it was, of course, just after two in the morning. Years of practice making perfect, she was dressed, feet slipped into clogs, hair back, face washed, and out the door before she was even fully awake. She backed the Cutlass out of the driveway and knew the moment the back tire hit the pavement that she had a flat.

"No, no, no," she groaned, forehead against the steering wheel. She hadn't fixed the spare after the last flat she'd gotten. She'd meant to. "Damn." She slapped the dash. "Damn!"

She fished her phone out of her bag and googled a cab company, but as she sat in the street-light lit cabin of the car reading through the hits, she considered. Then she scrolled back through her contacts, and bit her lip looking at Chibs' name on the very short list. She had added it to her contacts after he left the hospital two weeks before, kidding herself that it was a normal thing to be doing. Keying in an outlaw biker's super secret cell, the ex-boyfriend's MC brother, the boyfriend whose baby she had watched be kidnapped while she shook so hard she bruised her body from the inside out. Yeah, a normal day for Tara Knowles in Charming. She tapped it.

On the second ring, he answered. "Howya?" He sounded awake.

"Filip, it's me, Tara."

"Tara." His voice changed to serious. "You alright? What do you need?"

"Yes, no, I'm alright. I know it's a crazy time to call."

"S'okay. I told you it'd be fine. Are you okay?"

"I am. Really." She hesitated, surprised at how comfortable she was with his voice, his presence on the other end of the line.

"Doll?"

"Sorry. I, uh, I have a flat tire. And I need to get to work like five minutes ago."

"You at home?"

She nodded. "I'm sorry. I don't know why I called you. I can call a cab."

"Naw, don't do that. I said it's okay. Enough with the apologies. Tell me where you are."

She rattled off her address.

"Sit tight."

And he signed off. She looked at the dimming light of the phone screen. Wondered why she had called him. A cab would have worked but that wouldn't fix the car. She had grown weary of taking care of herself. She climbed out, leaning against the cold metal. She breathed in deeply the summer night air, holding it in her lungs. Thinking of what she wanted, who she wanted. And for the first time in a long time, it wasn't Jax Teller.

She wanted Chibs to take care of her. And that realization washed over her in a combination of longing and recrimination.

She heard the bike in the dark, entering the subdivision, slowing for stop signs, banking into and out of intersections, and then roaring down her street. All black rider and blacked out bike. She shook her head, aware of the fact that she knew he was riding a stripped down Harley Davidson Dyna. That sort of information was something left over from her teen years with Jax, memorizing body shapes, cubic engine sizes, the crazy variety of seats, fenders, handlebars. He pulled up hard, over the curb edge and into her driveway, parking in front of the sideways car. She knew the physical routine of the bike quieting between her legs, the lean of the machine, the kickstand, the helmet strap, the shaking out of the tingling thighs. He turned towards her and she was smiling, giddy.

He gave her a strange look but pulled his gloves off, one finger at a time as he moved around her, seeking out the flat and nodding to himself when he found it.

"Tha's a puncture a'right."

"Hi Filip."

"Hi yerself." He smiled and ducked his head. Unexpectedly, her heart hammered at this. "You got a spare and a jack?"

She shook her head. "I don't, I mean, I do. I didn't want you to change my tire. The spare is flat in the trunk."

"Not much good then, is it." He was still smiling, watching her. He looked slightly confused, spreading his hands out wide, questioning. "I got the bike."

She nodded. "I see that." She laughed now, it was ridiculous. "Can you give me a lift?"

"A ride?"

"Yes."

He watched her from under lowered brows, a moment stretching out between him, and she made a silent wish. It was a thin tentative thing, wordless, muted, a flash of an image, a flush of warmth.

Then he shrugged, accommodating her. "Sure. We can't leave this like that, though." He opened the car door and slung himself into the front seat. "Watch out, luv." He threw it into neutral, one foot dangling outside, and expertly swung the heavy car into the street and up against the curb.

He put the keys into his front jeans pocket, walked back up to the bike and held his helmet out to her. She pulled it onto her head, still warm, and the intimacy of it sent a spark of fire down her spine. He fastened it for her, pulling the strap tighter without pinching her. Then he straddled the bike, and she knew to wait while he rolled it down into the street. He held out his hand, she placed hers inside to steady herself, the strength in his arm balancing her, and she swung her right leg over and behind him. He had no extra seat, she was sitting on the fender, and the curve of it had her sliding up against him. He was between her legs, her thighs fast against his and before she could overthink the physicality, he kicked it to life and her hands went to his hips. He reached down and pulled each of her hands around his body and she clasped them together. His soft belly contrasting with the hard muscles of his legs, flexing as he rode.

She laughed, delighted to be on the bike, behind him, in the night air, screaming out of her sober neighborhood at two in the morning. She pressed the side of her head against his back, closed her eyes tight at the glaring reaper, then leaned slightly backwards, the wind whipping over her eyelids, a caress. Inside her chest, she felt her tiny wish begin to grow.

In the hospital parking lot she handed him back the helmet, feeling suddenly quiet. Without the helmet, she felt exposed in some way. Revealed. Wind-chafed and slightly out of breath. The reality of his presence, the bike, the steady gaze he gave her was overwhelming. A strange guilt licked at her, as though she was cheating on someone.

"Tara," he said her name simply, no question no statement.

She nodded at this, smiling shyly. She wanted to turn and bolt through the glass doors, she wanted to step into his space and touch the side of his neck with her fingers. She wondered if he was feeling the same odd sensation of comfort and the pull of a small longing.

"What time you off?"

She furrowed her brows. "Oh, I don't know. I'm not sure. Why?"

He smiled, squinting at her. "Don't you want to get home?"

"Yes, oh, yeah, sure. I'll call a cab. I could walk."

"Backwards even. What about the Cutlass? I'll pick you up. Tell me what time to be here or call me when you're ready."

"I could text you," she said impulsively, wanting to keep teasing with him.

He looked at her, nonplussed. "We ain't adolescents, darling."

She laughed slightly, feeling awkward, pulling at the ends of her hair. "I should be okay to leave around mid-morning. I will call you. Thanks. Thank you."

He shook his head at her, dismissing the gratitude, settled the helmet on his head, straps swinging, straddling the bike. "Good." She turned away and he called out to her. She turned back. "Or you could sext me, too. That'd work."

Before she could answer him, he was banking out of the lot.

* * *

Hours on her feet in the operating theater. Assisting. The newborn child breathing through the surgery, surviving the violence of medicine. The heart smaller than her thumb, the strain of her eyes through the loupes. During a long stretch of minutes, watching the pediatric cardiologist work precisely, something in the shape of the newborn's feet beneath the drape opened a tiny hole inside her mind and she became trapped in memories of another baby, another lifetime ago.

She gasped herself out of the images, physical and emotional, and the surgeon and a nurse looked up at her sharply. She squinted herself back to awareness, to the surgery, the room, the patient, the machines.

Later, in the break room, she swallowed a hot cup of black coffee in three gulps. Then filled it again, this time with equal amounts of creamer and nursed it like an alcoholic with a bottle. She was frustrated and unhappy with what happened during surgery. In her methodical way, she listed all the things that could have pulled her so entirely into another place. Exhaustion, intent focus, Abel Teller's similar heart surgeries, and Chibs. It all had to have begun with riding pillion, the reaper in her peripheral. But she had not considered Jax during the ride over to St. Thomas, or had she? She remembered the small prick of guilt.

She finished the coffee and stood beside the garbage can, turning the Styrofoam cup in her hands. She turned a narrowed gaze internally, studying a surfacing dark truth. Thinking of Jax was to betray Chibs.

But more than that, thinking of Chibs was a betrayal of her own fatalistic determination that her life was destined to be short, brutal, and filled with the complicated struggle of love and hate.


	3. Chapter 3

She texted him. Just to be obstreperous. Moments later, the cell vibrated in the pocket of her scrubs.

"WOT? No picture?"

She actually laughed out loud, staring down at the screen, standing at the nurse's station in pedes. All of the nurses looked up startled. She didn't laugh often. Or at all. But she smiled at them now and two smiled back, tentative. Was she really that scary? How had she become the brusque doctor? If she was ten years older, they would be circulating nasty rumours. She sighed.

In the locker room she took a long scalding shower, barely able to touch her own body with soap and washcloth, it had been so long since anyone had put their hands on her. Her skin was aching as she toweled herself dry. With a surprised vanity, she realized she had only sweat pants and a t-shirt to change into. And she was wearing clogs. Sexy, Tara, she said to herself. Then had she to sit down on the bench to think about that.

Filip "Chibs" Telford? Physically, the opposite of Jax Teller in every imaginable way. Yet, he had a swagger and a style that was unmistakable. She had wondered for long months why he was single and then was not surprised when she met the exotic Fiona. Of course he had a beautiful wife and child in Ireland. She thought about Fiona, had he returned from Ireland alone? Wayne Unser had casually with purpose sought her out in the hospital six weeks before, telling her that Abel had been found, SAMCRO was returned stateside. His face was guarded but his hand on her arm steadied her as he spoke. She had stammered, staring at him, her shaking hand over her mouth, nodding, _thank you thank you_, and then excusing herself to her office where she locked the door and cried herself dry. On the list of her personal sins, she could cross Abel's kidnapping off.

What was she doing re-immersing herself in Jax's world? She had no right. And more than that she was spinning out some crazy fantasy involving Filip. He would never allow himself to be drawn into her dark waters. He was acting in place of Jax, in support of Jax. Even if he was remotely interested, he would never break the covenant of the MC. She thought of their early morning ride, the crooked grin, the cocked eyebrow, and the feel of him between her legs. She berated herself. Angry and disgusted. She needed to talk to Margaret about a transfer. To anywhere.

With a heaving sigh, she stood, sad and tired and walked out into the parking lot.

The Cutlass was parked the second row over and Chibs was leaning against the quarter panel, smoking, booted feet crossed and she saw him immediately. With his shades on she couldn't be sure he had seen her but then the slow smile on his rugged face gave him away and she wanted to weep.

She walked closer and he lazily straightened himself, grinding out the smoke beneath his boot, raising the shades to his forehead. Her face must have been revealing because he stopped smiling.

"Bad day?" he asked and the question was so sincere she had to close her eyes.

She shook her head no. "Good day, actually. Saved a baby's life, I'm pretty sure."

Still he studied her face. Then he nodded and handed her the keys. "New meats all around. And a spare in the trunk. Those tires were shot, Tara."

She stared down at one of the brand new Michelins. Had he washed the car? And she felt reduced. "You didn't need to do that. Don't you think if I had the money I would have replaced them myself?"

She watched him react, just a narrowing of his eyes, and then he pulled the shades down into place, pursing his lips. This made the insane scars on his cheeks stand out starkly, the thick twisting lines lifelong proof that someone had hurt him very badly. She felt a stab of shame.

"No charge, right. I got it."

She turned her face away. "No. I'll pay you."

"You needed tires, girl."

"I know. I know I did." She felt her legs quivering. "I guess you need a ride?"

"Naw, I'll make a call." He fished his cell out of the pocket of his cut and began to back away from her, still talking. "My bike's at your house. Don't run it over or sell it if you get there 'fore I do. You can take it for a spin, though. Seems like you might need to." He turned away.

She buried her face in both hands and breathed through the smell of antiseptic on her skin. The sterility of her life. She lowered her hands. He was tapping on the phone screen. "Filip!" she called to him.

He stopped but kept his distance.

She shook her head. "Please."

He lifted one shoulder. She had the keys in her hand and she walked quickly over to him. She held them out. "I'm so sorry. That was brutal. Please, I'm sorry. Will you take me home?"

He was unreadable behind the blue shades but she recognized the closed look in his face. It was one she seemed able to coax out of all men. Then it softened with a small imperceptible tilt of his head towards her. He took the keys. "C'mon, doc."

He drove fast and with a reckless precision and Tara loved it. She drove the car like a little old lady. If the Cutlass had been a black horse she would have been wearing battle armour and leaping into the fray with him.

At the house, his bike was parked beside the front walkway to the door and he nosed the car against the garage door. "You keep her inside?" he asked, idling.

She shook her head no and he keyed off the engine. "You do lock her up, right?"

Again she shook her head.

"This car." He whistled low. "You should. You should."

Outside, on the cement drive, they stood miles apart. She knew she had done this, separated them. She wanted to explain herself to him, ask him about Fiona, tell him she was as over Jax Teller as the cow was over the moon. She wanted to reach for his hand, cook him dinner and breakfast. She wanted him to keep talking to her in his deep male voice with his impossible accent.

"What about that ride then?" he asked.

And she felt the small sparks of their wires crossing, an electric welding. It burned out everything else and she could only stand there grinning at him and nodding.

"Go on and get changed."

* * *

He had two helmets now and this spoke more to her than if he had produced a bouquet of yellow roses from behind his back. On the bike, she squeezed him hard, _please forgive me_, and at the first red light he reached down and cupped the back of her knee with a gloved hand.

They rode for miles, out of Charming, through endless fields of sunflowers, just beginning to open and turn their faces into the light. She lay her head against his back and let the vivid yellows and greens flash past her until she felt as though she were hallucinating colours. Everything else disappeared around the dark edges of her vision. She welcomed the dissolution of thought. The vibration of the bike, the warmth of the sun, the solid male body, and the buffeting wind centered her, focused her, stripped her bare until she was only her physical self and its sensations.

He seemed to know she didn't want to stop. He took frontage roads where he could open the bike up. Bumpy abandoned highways that ran along the canal. Then he slowed for an on-ramp and they were back on the freeway heading home. He settled against her. She had forgotten the envious stares of men driving minivans, women with carloads of children, boys in muscle cars. The avoiding glances of business men in Mercedes and an old woman in a vintage Cadillac. She smiled to herself but missed the intensity of their solitary ride. She slipped her hands up beneath his t-shirt, flat-palming the hair on his stomach. With one hand he pressed at her knuckles, holding her hand fast against his hot skin.

He parked the bike in the street, and she stood, leveraging her hands on his shoulders, wobbly and exhilarated. She handed him the helmet.

"Didja get healed?" he asked her.

She could only laugh and nod. "Thank you," she said.

He watched her, still behind the sunglasses, but with his lower lip sucked between his teeth. She waited for him to say something. She needed him to say something because all her own words and actions seemed vague and insubstantial.

"It's all good, darlin' girl. You got my number."

She furrowed her brows at this. But he shook his head and jumped on the starter pedal. She stepped back, arms loose at her sides, hands empty.


	4. Chapter 4

The next morning, after rounds, she found a fax on her desk. An amazing job opportunity at a small hospital outside of Seattle. It would be an incredible position for a doctor her age, first years out of her residency. Margaret had stuck a Post-It note to it that was simply exclamation marks, a smiley face, and a "see me" in her neat script. Tara folded it and folded it before putting it in her bag, an abstract origami shape that symbolized hope and despair simultaneously. Was a new life the answer to all of her ruined questions?

On the way home, she stopped at the mall. Just walking through the doors had her stepping back in time a decade or so. High school weekends and slumming the suburban mall, the food court, the arcade. Had she ever been so young and full of sass? How had she gotten so old and filled with fear? She knew what she was after and she made a beeline. The young salesgirl was complimentary about her figure, brought her outfit after outfit until she felt she had the right combination. She was determined to have rhinestones on her ass, and a ballet-style black top that showed off her collarbones. The suggestion of black pumps was something she would not have considered, she had wanted boots, but with the skinny jeans, the pumps were elegant, just this side of nasty, and very European. She slid her credit card across the counter, refusing to question her intentions, and the heavy bag felt satisfyingly substantial as she made her way back outside.

At the bank she withdrew several crisp hundred dollar bills. She turned them over in her hands, studying the bold design. Money as an exchange. But in this case, more of a bet. For reasons she couldn't really quantify, she believed she was wagering on happiness.

She looked at her hands, the slender fingers, the strength of the tendons running over her knuckles, around the bracelet of bone in her wrists. Her hands were everything, her livelihood, her skill, her craft.

It was time to own her life again, reach for and grab something she could hold onto.

* * *

She texted him. "I have your money. THANK YOU."

And then she waited. All afternoon. The evening. Into the night. At one in the morning, the cell rang and she reached for it with a wildly beating heart. His name on the screen.

"Hello," she said quietly, swallowing around the pounding pulse in her throat.

"Tara."

No one had ever said her name the way he did. It heated and slowed the blood in her veins.

"Filip." She answered.

"So, you wanta pay me, aye?"

"Yes."

"And kick me in the yockers, too, for good measure?" He was laughing.

"I said I was sorry. I acted badly."

"Always apologizing. Says she's sorry, says she's got silver, hear that?"

"Who are you talking to?" Unwelcome images flashed through her mind. "Where are you?"

"Aw, talking to an old tom cat skulking around here. I call him Tom. Where am I? I'm outside."

"Outside?" she asked, stupidly. For an explosive moment she thought he meant he was outside her house, but of course he wasn't.

"Aye, not inside. Ya know?"

"I see. Are you drunk?" His vernacular was deep and broad.

"Probably. You?"

"No."

"Nooooooooooooo." He laughed again, pulling the word out in a dramatic girly voice.

"What's funny?" She turned onto her back, holding the phone against her ear, feeling a warmth spread through her body, so forgotten that it was unfamiliar.

"You are, girl. You make me laugh."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"It's bleedin' deadly. Not too many things make me laugh these days."

She hummed into the phone. "Me neither."

"You like to ride, aye?"

"I do."

"Sweet, tha's sweet. Makes the both of us."

"You're really good."

"Damn straight I am. At what?"

"Riding. Driving."

He laughed again. It was a sound she thought she could listen to all night.

"You're good at holding on," he said.

"I want to go for a ride."

"Wot, now?"

"Maybe."

"Naw. You're all tucked into bed."

"How do you know that?" she teased.

"Are you?" he asked, suddenly quiet and intent.

Her body responded immediately to his low-pitched voice, the change in timbre, the slide of his accent. She squirmed. "I think we should talk."

"What are we doing now, luv?"

"Talking. But I mean, about some serious things."

"Sounds dull."

"Really?"

"Aye." He paused and she could hear a flame to cigarette. Then he was exhaling. "You want to go for a ride tomorrow? Pack a lunch or something like?"

She smiled wide to herself, closing her eyes, nodding. "Yes," she whispered. "I do."

"Mmmm. A'right then. Sweet dreams, sweet Tara."

"Same to you, Filip."

* * *

She had tuna fish and artisan bread. Apples and cheese. She was making herself crazy with a bottle of wine, on the counter, in the bag, back on the counter. The new jeans, a tank top, her leather. Stacked heel engineer boots. And her long hair in a braid.

She had been pacing and then she heard the bike. She shrugged into her jacket, stuffed the wine back into the bag, and was out the front door.

He was still on the bike when she had the door closed and locked behind her. He raised an eyebrow at this, but backed the heavy bike up and glided it back down into the street. She followed him. He was fishing the other helmet out of the saddle bags and she stood beside him, her back pack on the ground between her feet. He handed her the helmet then hefted her bag experimentally before nodding and setting it back down.

"Do we have a destination?" she asked.

"Lunch."

She gave him a wry smile, settled the helmet and fastened it, then slung the back pack on, watching him.

"We'll know the place when we see it, right." He held his hand out to her and when she put hers inside, he didn't let go, pulling her arm around his body after she was tight against his back.

Out of Charming, through fields of sunflowers, then shady orchards, and into the small foothills. She was nearly delirious with the solidness, the reality, of him in her arms. With casual purpose, she had her hands on his hips, then around his waist, up into his shirt, fingers ghosting his flesh, then relaxed on his thighs, the long muscles thick and hard beneath her sweating palms. During one straight stretch of abandoned highway she could no longer help herself and she brushed her hands up beneath his t-shirt, seeking out the sharp edges of his ribcage. She could feel him pull his breath into his body and hold it, her fingers tracing the short rib from which woman had been formed.

A pioneer cemetery. He pointed down the road to it and she nodded into his back. It was fenced and gated and towering weeping willows stood grieving throughout the small acreage. He idled the bike in front of the iron gates and she jumped off, shouldering one open and he pulled through and she followed, walking. Up over a small rise, and a line of mausoleums formed the rear boundary and a patch of weathered grass marked the far corner of the graveyard. He pulled ahead of her and parked the bike there. She missed the feel of his body, the trembling of the Harley.

He met her and unfastened her helmet and hung it on the handlebars. He urged the back pack off her shoulders, and helped her out of her leather.

"This is the place?" she asked, teasing him slightly.

He nodded, looking around. "I don't like people."

She laughed. "There are a lot of people here."

"Aye, but they keep to themselves, right. They're quiet, see."

With no warning he reached for her and pulled her into his arms, hard and fast and tight against his body. She slid her arms around him and pressed herself into his embrace. She felt all hesitation fall away from her. There was an electric current arcing between them and she had not imagined it. His hands were warm and strong on her back, she could feel his breath across the side of her neck. Her teeth were hungry for him.

"Oh, god," he groaned and pulled her even tighter to him. She went up on tiptoe to feel the long length of his body, the strength in spine as she gave some of her weight over to his hands. Slowly he rocked them back into a state of relaxation, then his hands dropped to her hips and he pushed her back to her feet, steadying her, and he stepped back.

"Tara, Tara," he said, shaking his head at her, pushing the shock of grey black hair out of his face, watching her from his dark eyes.

She knew he was waiting for her to move towards him, for her to leap, and she could feel the pull of the beckoning abyss. They were teetering on the edge of something, but it was too big, too far a fall, and she smiled at him, then turned and scooped up her pack and sauntered underneath the shade of the willows. She pulled a blanket out of the bag and snapped it out cleanly. Then she sat down and toed off her boots, peeled off her socks and tucked them inside. She leaned back on her hands, looking over to where he was standing.

"Didn't take you for a hippie," he called over.

"My feet are hot."

"More than just you're feet, darlin'." He joined her on the blanket, taking off the cut, then the short sleeve mechanic's shirt he wore over his tee, and lay on his back, hands behind his head.

She began setting up their picnic. He sat up and took the wine from her and opened it, drinking deeply. He handed it to her and lay back down. She lifted it to her lips, watching him down the length of the bottle, a long swallow and he smiled, intent and serious. She licked the red droplets from her lips. He reached up and caught her braid, pulling the elastic out of it and finger brushing it loose. He brought his fingers to the side of her face, the corner of her lips, the edge of her jaw, and then raised himself slightly on his elbow. With his hand on the back of her neck, he pulled her down to him.

Their gazes were locked as they fell.


	5. Chapter 5

For long minutes she was gloriously alive, fully in the moment, all flesh and bone and longing. The sensation of falling, twisting through air with him, thought disintegrating, the world becoming this man. He had both hands on the sides of her head, holding fast, controlling the kiss. His lips were chapped but his mouth soft on hers. As he grew more heated beneath her, she began to moan softly through his teeth, slitting her eyes closed. She was overwhelmed by how well they were fitting together. He kissed exactly how she loved to kiss and be kissed.

He was beginning to open to her, all want and need, she could feel it in the way his skeleton was revealing itself to her, jutting hipbones, the bending shoulder, his breastbone, and it was making her delirious.

With a deliberate movement full of male intent, he had her in his arms and was rolling her beneath him, one thigh between hers, her hip tight in his grasp. She broke the kiss and arched up into him and he brought his face down into her throat and she called out his name. He braced his hands on either side of her head and ground down into her, canting his hips and she felt him hard, all steel purpose.

He was kissing her again and the soft exploratory kissing was gone. His tongue was deep in her mouth, brushing across hers, up behind her teeth and she was kissing him in return hard and hungry.

She was ravenous with hunger for him. The desire to consume and be consumed. But it was too much, too fast. She was panicking slightly at how utterly out of control she was becoming. Lifelong armour thickened on her skin and she could not give herself over. She brought her hands up to his back, the bunching muscles, the well of his spine, and slid them to his shoulders where she urged him over onto his side. He rolled and pulled her body tight against his.

She felt him relax, her face against his neck listening to him breathe.

He leaned up on an elbow, looking down at her, his pupils blown. She brought her hand up to his face, tracing the scars, the edge of his goatee. He closed his eyes and leaned his head into her hand. His face had aged and weathered into the rugged visage he showed to the world, but now he looked boyish, the hooded eyes, the dimples ruined by the terrible Glasgow grin. She felt insanely lucky to be so close to him and she kissed the corners of his mouth, his cheeks and then lay back against his arm, looking up at him.

"What is it, Tara?"

She asked herself the same question.

"Wut, you never did it in a graveyard before?" he growled affectionately.

She frowned. "No."

He laughed. "Good. Me neither."

She felt his small joke grow larger in her mind, senselessly stripping it of levity. "Is that what this is?"

"Is that what what is?" He cocked his head, one eye nearly closed. She recognized the twist in his mouth as anger. "Oh, right. That's exactly what this is. We're all the way out here for tiffin so I can get a fine bit of tail."

She had no response to this. He gently let her go. She rolled onto her back away from him, shielding her eyes with one hand from his gaze.

He sat up and reached for his cut, fishing a pack of smokes out. He leaned back on one hand and retrieved a matte black Zippo from his jean pocket. She watched him through her fingers as he went through the habitual motions of lipping out a cigarette, lighting it and tossing the pack and lighter back onto his vest. Everything about him appealed to her and she scowled thinking of how she had put him off and with no discernible reason. Old habits were so ingrained into her she was surprised her skin wasn't tree bark. She didn't seem to be able to break free of it. She sighed and he looked down at her.

"You run hot and cold, lass. You call me at two in the morning to help you out but then you don't want me to help you." He paused. "I know that you want your hands on me." He pulled her arm down, away from her face, gripping her wrist. "You said you wanted to talk. Talk."

She had become transparent, shivering glass. He seemed to sense this, watching her from behind a guarded but kind expression. Slowly she sat up and surprised herself by motioning for the cigarette. He handed it over and she took a deep drag. The smoke filled her lungs and she welcomed the moment of hazy dizziness. She handed it back.

"I'm sorry, Filip."

"Jaysus, stop already with the fuckin apologies." He grabbed for the bottle of wine. "I get it. You're sorry. For what though?"

She screwed her knuckles into her eyes, she was suddenly afraid that she might cry. "I really like you," she whispered.

"And that's what you're apologizing for?"

She laughed now, pressing her fingertips beneath her lower lashes, nodding. "No. No." She lowered her hands, looking at him, smiling sadly. "I'm a mess."

He raised an eyebrow at this. "We're all injured, luv."

"I'm scared. All the time."

She watched as his male hackles rose, the dangerous and feral outlaw. "Of what?"

She shook her head, embarrassed now. "Of myself. Of this life."

His face softened, he handed her the wine, watching her. "That's a waste of time and energy, right. Unless you're thinking of checking out, this is what we've been given and hiding from it cuz you're scared of it is pointless."

"I know." She drank. They had nearly finished the bottle. "I don't know. You're making me feel alive."

"That is not a bad thing, lass." He ground the butt out into the grass. ""You don't have to protect yourself from me, Tara. Let's start over. We'll eat and you tell me about all the people you saw with their insides on their outsides this week. I got a strong stomach."

She smiled, then leaned toward him and kissed him. He grabbed for her neck and rolled his forehead against hers.

After lunch, they packed everything away. He had one of the apples in his hand, taking big crunching bites. She put her socks and boots back on and he offered her a hand up. He didn't let go and they slowly meandered the walkways through headstones and mausoleums. He stopped, he had eaten the apple down to the core, leaning back on one leg he pulled his arm back and threw it far over the fence. Something in the fluid movement of his body had her biting her upper lip.

In front of the bike, he pulled her again into his arms, rocking her, pressing his mouth against her ear, whispering nonsense.

"You got an amazing body, girl."

"I thought you said I was too thin."

"Mmmm. Musta been them scrubs. You're a fuckin goddess."

"Fil," she laughed, pleased.

* * *

At her house, he parked the bike in the street and she knew this meant he wasn't staying. He walked her up to the door, carrying the backpack. She turned and watched him. The familiar sadness was rising like a tide within her, slow but steady. She reached out both hands and he dropped the pack and took them.

"You know most of the guys are in the nick? Doing soft time?"

She had read of the bust, the executions, and she nodded wondering where he was going with this information.

"I have to be at the clubhouse, aye?"

"Of course. Yes," she was starting to babble and he leaned forward and kissed her quickly quiet.

"Hush. I'm telling you that I need to set things up with Piney. Opie's got himself in deep with Lyla and I wouldn't take him from that. So, dinner tomorrow night?"

She nodded, smiling. She hadn't expected that.

"Nothing fancy. We can take the Cutlass though. Maybe Catfish Charlie's on the river?"

Not an MC haunt. But dark and out of town. "I can't wait," she whispered and reached up for him.

He pressed her up against the door, kissing her with a wild abandon that took her breath away. Again. He was getting bolder with his hands, had them up under her tank top, flat-palming the skin of her back, over her ribs, up beneath her shoulder blades. It was electrifying. And she wanted her bones hotwired.

But he was wary now, she could sense it despite the sparks, and he kissed out of her mouth, his lips against her cheek. He nuzzled his way to her ear.

"I gotta tell you, Tara, I can't remember the last time I wanted so bad to crawl inside someone."

She smiled against the side of his head.

He kissed her, close mouthed and stood back. "Tomorrow night," he said simply and turned away.

She watched him, the routine of the motorcycle, the masculine movements of his body and the machine and then he was gone.


	6. Chapter 6

Inside the house, she locked the door, and walked into the kitchen. She paused for a moment to listen to the roar of the Harley disappearing into the early evening. She felt the long night reaching for her and she opened another bottle of wine. She rinsed a dirty wine glass out and poured a liberal serving. With the glass in one hand and the bottle in the other, she walked through the empty dining room, into the empty front room, and pulled up the dusty shades over the window, peering out past the front yard. She had grown up on this tidy street, her untidy life a shameful secret behind the windows and door. She let the late day sun attempt to warm the cold room, slanting through the dust motes.

The interior painting was finished, a neutral cream Kelly-Moore had sold her as Dappled Sunlight and even after all the walls, trim, and ceiling were wearing two coats the house was still a dismal and frigid hell. Too many monsters and memories crouching in the corners. Drunken fathers and dead mothers. Gunshot ex-lovers and an empty uterus. Her solitary life. Love simply injured you. It was something that would hurt you, abandon you, shove you, slap you, puke on you, rape you, in the worst of cases make a murderer of you, and a liar and a runaway in the best.

The rooms were all barren. She turned and let her gaze sweep across the emptiness. She never went into the master bedroom. The carpet guys hadn't spoken English but she had avoided them studiously for the hours it took to cover the damning floor of that room. Now she leaned an ear against the door, listening for her parents fighting, her mother sobbing, her father weeping drunkenly. She closed her eyes and was a small child again, curled against the bottom of the door, sleeping as close as she could possibly get to them. At nine she simply stood outside, hands limp at her sides, her mother gone and her father locked away inside. Then as a surly teenager, tiptoeing past her father's snoring.

She wasn't going to cry for the dead, but she did whisper an apology and a small Irish prayer her mother had taught her. Listening harder, she was assaulted by Kohn's mewling anger. She curled her lips back from her teeth, her stomach threatening to empty itself. She downed half the wine and pressed her face back again to the door. Josh had represented everything Jax had not. Clean-cut, upright, the law. It had been a shock to her entire system when she discovered his moral compass was spinning wildly inside his broken psyche. She had grown to hate him in life but now pitied him in his death. Another apology and a prayer, for her own soul, went out into the universe.

She turned and walked down the hallway, past the room her mother had called a guest room although they never had a single guest. Past the room that had been hers until she fled. She couldn't bear to return to it. The four walls and ceiling acted as a memory vault she could not escape if she entered, nineteen years of memories that would not be vanquished. That door stayed shut, too. The ghost of the living lurked behind it; the fumbling beginnings of her relationship with Jax.

Through the front room again, and towards the back of the house to the small room she had made her own. It had been designated craft room, office, and then finally storage throughout the years but she had reclaimed it. She had painted it a deep warm grey and furnished it minimally. An outrageously expensive queen bed dressed in silk and Egyptian cotton. A large art photograph, deep muted reds and blacks, of a close-up of open heart surgery was hung on the wall in place of a headboard. A mirrored bureau and a mirrored bedside table.

She sat on the edge of the bed, kicked off her boots, and set the wine bottle and glass on the bedside table. She stood and stripped off all her clothes and lay back down, imagining if the afternoon had gone in a carnal direction. Her skin was still tingling from the long motorcycle ride. Her bones still aching. All her desire in the center of her body, a hand grenade waiting for the pin to be pulled. She closed her eyes and all she could see was Chibs' with the pin between his teeth.

He had called her on her stuff. And he was right, what was going on with all the apologizing. She was sorry for so many things, in the past and in the future. She was pathetic and he had basically told her so. Unless you're looking for a way out, you're here. Be here. But, and she drained the glass with this thought, she was looking for a way out. Running away. Physically and emotionally. Always leaving. She never entered a room without knowing where the door was, and if not the door, a window. She interacted with people from behind a riot shield, angry and frightened. After thirty years, these things had reduced her and in the eight months since she had run from Jax she had grown less angry and more sad, less accusatory and more apologetic.

Jax had been her only true love so far. Kohn had proven to her that she was an abysmal reader of character and terrible at choosing things for herself. But she was over Jax now and Kohn was gone forever. Chibs offered something entirely different yet he looked so much like all the things she had already tried and failed at with Jackson. The bad boy, the outlaw, masculine to a dangerous fault. Hadn't she already traveled that road and her life had become a car wreck. Ending things with Jackson had been far more traumatizing than anything she had gone through with Kohn, even his slumped and bleeding body had been less terrible than the look on Jax's face in his grandfather's house. And what kind of person did that make her? She screwed her eyes shut now.

She fell back on the bed, lifted her fists to her face, tapping hard at her forehead, wanting to be unconscious. But suddenly, on her back, she was flushed with a body memory of Filip. The weight of him, the strength, the desire he had flooded her with by simply pressing his thigh into the juncture of hers. His mouth, his lips, his tongue. She turned onto her side, pulling her knees up to her chest, and she unloosed her imagination, let it become an overwhelming longing, a need for another human being, for this man in particular. More than the physical consummation, the desire to lick every inch of his flesh, the suck-breath need to have him take her, she was overcome with the kindness in his dark eyes, a certain tilt to his head, his hand holding hers, and the gentle low cadence of his voice saying her name.

She had certainly been aware of him, before. When she was trying so hard to tangle her life back up with Jax's knotted life. He was impossible to not notice. But the overwhelming heat she was feeling now, the undeniable attraction was new. Or she just had not allowed herself to go there, had honoured the tacit agreement of covetousness, of other men's possessions. She knew herself well enough to know that her feelings for Chibs had nothing to do with Jackson Teller or SAMCRO. The familiarity she had with the MC lifestyle certainly made the idea of the outlaw Scot plausible, but she knew that was as far as any possible re-involvement went. She did not want to tease, trump or call out Jax. She wanted nothing to do with him anymore, or his mother, or Clay or SAMCRO. Chibs could be any modern Viking in any city, the desire she was feeling for him was solely between the two of them.

* * *

She woke to the cell ringing. It was in her jeans pocket on the floor. Her heart thumped with his name on the screen.

"Filip," she answered it.

"You," he said.

A comfortable silence. She listened as he lit a smoke.

"Is Tom there?" she asked.

"Aye, he is. C'mere, ya bastard." He laughed. "He won't let me touch 'im. He's like you."

She scowled but felt an infusion of warmth that he was so bold. "I've been thinking of you."

"Aye?"

"Tomorrow night," she stated this simply. For reasons she would not be able to give voice to, she knew they shared a wavelength.

"Tha' right?" He sounded as though he were smiling.

"Aye," she said dramatically.

"You sound like a pirate."

They laughed.

* * *

She listened to the bike pull up into her driveway. Finishing touches in the hall bathroom with the window facing the street. He knocked and she heard him let himself in and knew she would catch hell for that. He called her name.

"Back here," she answered. "Just another minute. Beer in the fridge."

She found him standing on the edge of the living room, looking around at the empty dark space, drinking from a bottle of imported beer.

She wrapped her arms around him from behind and he murmured appreciatively. He turned and caught her in a hug, then kissed her. He stepped back, looking at her appreciatively.

"Nice," he grinned. "You look outrageous. Beautiful."

"Thank you." She took the beer from him and drank.

"Why is your front door unlocked?"

She popped her eyes at him. "For you."

He nodded, skeptical. He waved a hand at the house. "What's going on here then?"

She walked back into the kitchen, her bag was on the table, he followed. "I don't know. What?"

"Tara. It's empty. It's a house not a home."

"That's what it is," she nodded. "And that's what it's always been. Are you ready?"

He took the beer from her and finished it, tossing the empty effortlessly into the garbage bin.

"Let's go."

* * *

Catfish Charlie's was a bar and restaurant in a ramshackle building jutting over the river. The gravel parking lot was half full with pickup trucks and older model cars. He parked the Cutlass, then reached for her, pulling her nearly into his lap as he kissed her deeply.

Outside he shrugged out of his cut and placed it on the backseat. She gave him a quizzical look.

"Charlie's is no patches. It's good. Neutral ground if you're needing such a thing."

He locked the door, pocketed the keys, and she took his hand. Inside, he pulled her through the bar and out onto the deck. She watched as he nodded to the bartender, and acknowledged the appreciative stares she was getting from men on bar stools and at the pool table. Outside, they sat at a small table. He ordered beer and steaks and chips. They talked and smoked. She was emotionally relaxed, mentally engaged, and physically on fire. She knew without question she would be taking him home. She leaned across the table and whispered, "I want you so bad it's making my teeth hurt."

He kissed her. "You got no idea, Tara."

During dinner, he finally asked her about Jax. "What happened there?"

She closed her eyes briefly. She had known this stagnant water would have to be bridged. She looked at him. "They blamed me for Abel's kidnapping." She reached for the pack of cigarettes on the table, but her hand was shaking and she grabbed for her glass of beer.

"They who?" He was watching her through narrowed cautious eyes.

"Jax. Gemma. Clay."

She watched him scowl. "They think you shoulda taken a knife to the gut like Half-Sack?"

She shrugged. "I guess they do."

"It wasn't your fault. You know that, right?"

"Sometimes I do. Sometimes, I don't know." She shook her head. "I'm glad he's home. And that's as much as I ever want to think about it. I had a hard time at first."

"It's not right they put that on you." He shook his head, looking out over the black water. "Jackie. He's just beginning to come into his power. He hasn't lost much in his life. I know - his Da and his brother, but I'm talking as a man. You got to survive some awful shite to get to a place where you begin to understand things. He's not quite there yet. This fuckin life will take him there, though. Gemma, she should know better. She can be a right bitch."

Tara nodded.

"Sorry I asked."

She finished her beer and he yelled something over his shoulder back into the bar. The bartender brought two beers to their table.

"You seem like a regular."

"Naw. Semi-regular like. I do come here. When I need to mellow out, forget things for a time, not wear the cut." He was watching her, then burst out laughing. "Alone."

She turned her dark gaze on him, smiled, caught out. "What makes you think I care about who you come here with?"

"You wear everything on your face, luv. You're an easy study."

* * *

She was pleasantly intoxicated. At the house, he keyed off the car and tapped the keys on his thigh. She leaned herself against his shoulder.

"Yes, yes," she whispered.

It was her turn to take his hand and lead him through the front door, through the darkened house and into her room. She lit two candles on the bureau and the shadows climbed into the corners of the room. Slowly she began to undress, keeping her gaze fast on his. He leaned back against the wall and watched her. Her clothes pooled at her feet and his expression had changed. He came for her fast, the male animal. Her breath caught in her throat, her heart stuttering around the fact of him, the force of him, her need for him.


	7. Chapter 7

**This chapter is for my grrls. You know who you are! **wishuy, HGRHfan35, Mrsprofile, pansyass, Befham ...

* * *

The leather and layers of black clothing, the chained wallet, the boots. And her naked body in his arms. He was solid sharp angles and she was soft erotic curves. She was finding the contrast delicious. He had his face buried against her throat, his mouth open and hot against her skin. She arched up into his lips, his teeth, and he held her, biting down into her shoulder.

He lowered her to the bed, a hand on her hipbone, holding her there, one-handed working the buttons on his shirt, fingers feeding them through the placket. Then he reached in the pocket of his cut and tossed a box of condoms onto the bedside table. He pushed the vest and shirt off his shoulders and they fell with a thudded clank to the carpet. He went down on a knee, pulling at the laces of one boot, leaning between her knees and nipping at the insides of her thighs. Then he unlaced the other boot and he stood and toed them off, kicking them aside.

She lifted her arm and slipped her wrist behind her neck, watching his frantic but methodical strip tease. She loved the gender differences in the simple act of dressing and undressing. He reached both hands above his head and pulled the T-shirt up and over his head, dropping it behind him. Then both hands on his belt, the button-fly and she watched, heated and curious, as he pushed the jeans down over his hips, stepping out of them.

The bed was high enough for him to stand between her legs and he pulled her to the edge of the mattress, leaning down and kissing her hard. His labored breathing making her smile against his lips. She wrapped her arms around his neck, urging him down.

"We got all night, Tara. I cannae wait jus' now," he growled into her ear and she nodded her agreement.

He straightened, reached for the condoms and she watched him, again feeling the heat rise to boiling inside her, the masculine act as he opened a package, and unrolled it deftly into place. His hands, his fingers and thumbs, the heavy silver rings, and the ridged knuckles were a visual aphrodisiac. Then he had his hands on her hips, pulling her even closer towards him, pressing her down into the mattress. With her legs wrapped around him, he slanted sideways, reached down for his cock between their bodies, and with a movement so perfect that it trapped all the oxygen inside her lungs, he was inside her.

The corded sexual tension they had strung between themselves over the past three days tightened, winding around the spools of their spines, pulling them closer, becoming a taut tie between them, vibrating along the length. She had never responded so instantly to a man's body before and her head fell back, the tip of her tongue following the bow of her upper lip. She still had not caught her breath and now she was gulping air. She could hear him humming a low cadence of sound, moaning. For her. She reached up for him and he bent into her arms, her hands on either side of his neck holding his face just above hers, every inhale for his exhale. Then he let go of her hips, smoothing open-palmed up the front of her body, over her ribs, taking each breast in his hands. She went up and over the edge, pulling him down to her completely, finding his mouth, his name on her tongue.

He kissed her, licking out of her mouth, biting at the edge of her jaw. She could feel his hips stutter against her. She reached between their bodies, seeking out one of his nipples. He closed his lips around her earlobe, "Aye, aye." She twisted it between finger and thumb and he was coming.

Gently, he nudged her towards the middle of the bed, and she lifted up so he could drag the bedding down to the end, kicking at it with her feet. He rolled onto his side and pulled the condom off, knotting it deftly and dropping it to the floor. He turned onto his back and she nestled up under his arm and they lay panting for long minutes.

"Girl."

She kissed the ribs over his heart, beneath his arm, the smell of his sweat intoxicating.

"It's like you were made for me."

She understood this perfectly and she laughed, a low delighted sound.

* * *

Slowly, she began to explore his body. He was like a dangerous cat under her ministrations. She pressed her face deep into his underarm, sucking the hairs into her mouth. She loved the smell of him. Then she followed the thick bicep with the tip of her tongue and stopped at the inside hinge of his elbow. She spent long minutes sucking dark red patches into his skin, before tracing the ropy muscles of his forearm to his wrist. She knelt up and settled back down between his raised knees, bringing his hand to her face, sucking each one of his fingers deep into her mouth, biting into the bone between his knuckles.

He groaned.

She laved across his chest, his tattoos dark shapes in the candle light but she could see a lettered name over his heart and for a sharp unpleasant moment she thought of Abel's name inked into Jax's flesh. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed the image away from her. She bit at his nipple and he brought both hands up and held her face against his skin, his hips rocking up into her, all masculine promise.

She kept moving down his body with her mouth, lips, teeth, tongue. His belly was soft and covered with dark hair. He had his hands on her shoulders now, encouraging her downwards and she smiled. He was beginning to respond. She took him into her mouth and he jerked upwards. He was perfect.

She crawled back up his body, straddling him, up on her knees and he reached for both her breasts and she arched backwards against his thighs. He was rock hard beneath her and he moved his hand down to fist his cock and she lowered herself onto him.

* * *

The candles guttering.

"We could be tested. Get rid of these feckin lifesavers, aye?" He was knotting the second condom.

She nodded, serious. "Yes, we could." She raised an eyebrow at him.

"I'm no altar boy."

"And if you were," she grinned, "that would be even more reason to be tested. And I'm allowed to say that because I'm Irish Catholic."

"Lapsed, right."

"And when was the last time you attended Mass, Telford?"

He ducked his head. "No priest on Earth wants to hear my confession, luv."

"You and me both." She closed her eyes tight against this thought. "I haven't been with anyone for almost a year now," she added, looking away.

"Aye? But look who you were shagging."

Her brows furrowed deeply.

He shrugged. "Right?" His voice was tentative now.

She tipped her head. "I don't know."

He muttered noncommittally. "We gonna smoke in here?"

"I don't care. Open the window."

He climbed out of the bed and disappeared through the door. When he returned he opened the window and lay back down with an opened beer and a makeshift ashtray. He lay on his back, smoking. She took the cigarette.

"Really, Filip?" She asked, returning to the subject of Jax.

He turned his head to look at her, squinting through the smoke, following her without pause.

"Wow," she whispered.

He shrugged against the pillows. "I can think of a truckload more things we could talk about. Or we don't have to talk. At all." He reached for her and she indicated the cigarette, taking a deep drag and holding it in her lungs.

She leaned across him, stubbing it out in the ashtray, his hands already on her breasts, her flesh tingling with the electricity his every touch volted through her, nipples hardening into his palms. She kissed him, exhaling the smoke and he pulled it fast into his mouth, smiling against her teeth. He flipped her body beneath his, blowing smoke in two thick columns out his nostrils, kissing her jawline. "Tara," he laughed.

With both hands behind her, hands cupping her shoulders, he moved between her thighs. She wrapped him in her arms and with slow deliberation he rocked her into an ecstatic oblivion. The candles burning out within moments of each other, the dark room pulling her under the waves of sleep.

* * *

The rising sun was steadily illuming the room, warming the morning air. She was wrapped in his arms, her head on his chest. She felt warm and wanted. Her body and mind relaxed and she reveled in the dopamine release he had triggered again and again inside her brain. He was right, they fit together lock and key, knife and sheath, hand and glove and it had been glorious.

She kissed his sleeping mouth and he roused, eyes slitting open. "Darlin'," he said, voice gravelly.

She slipped out of the bed and he reached for her hand, stopping her but she was already on her feet, her back to him. His fingers were on the swell of her ass.

"What the fuck?" he said loudly, startling her.

"What?" she asked, turning quickly, her heart lodging in her throat. She had not heard this tone from him before, outside of the clubhouse.

He was throwing off the sheets, pulling himself out of the bed, reaching for her again. He grabbed her hips and turned her away from him.

"What in the hell is that?" he asked, fingers tracing the crow inked into her lower back.

"Filip?"

"What. In. The. Hell. Is that?" he asked again and his voice had descended into a dangerous register.

She twisted in his grasp, looking down at the edges of the tattoo. She pulled herself away from him backing towards the door. "It's a tattoo and you know that. What's wrong?"

"That isn't just a tattoo, Tara. And you know that. That's Old Lady ink."

She was nodding, confused and frightened by the look on his face. "I know what it is."

He was angrily pulling on his jeans, buttoning, feeding the end of the belt through the buckle. "I've missed something here."

"What? What have you missed?" She could see the anger visibly rising inside of him, his eyes darkening, his mouth a tight line, the scars whitening into his cheeks.

"You got that for Jax?"

"When I was a kid."

He was shaking his head. "Fuck me. Fuck me!"

"Fil, you're scaring me. I don't understand what's wrong. Why are you so upset? It's a tattoo I got when I was eighteen years old!"

"Tara," he was breathing hard, kicking his clothes together, reaching down for his t-shirt.

She suddenly felt incredibly exposed, vulnerably naked. She had begun to shake. "What is it?" she whispered and it felt like a cry.

"What is it?" He was fully dressed now, sitting on the bed, head in his hands. He looked up at her, then reached for his socks and boots and began putting them on. Finally he stood. "That crow. That's Old Lady ink. It carries a message, weight, in the MC. It's," he paused, looking away from her, "it's a sign of ownership."

She cringed. "No. That's ugly."

"I've missed something here. I'm not getting something about you and Jax. How serious were you?"

"Serious. You didn't know we were together in high school? He was my first." She refused to allude to Jackson's proclamations of lifelong true love.

He had his tongue deep in his cheek, shaking his head. "Fuck me," he said again. "No. I didn't know that. How in hell would I have known that? I mean he was fucking married to that junkie, he's a bloke who fucks prostitutes. You showed up like a queen and you hung around a while and then you were gone. I must have been preoccupied, aye right? I fucking avoided you because every single thing about you turned me inside out."

"So what's the issue here?"

"The issue? You might as well have "property of the Oakland Hells Angels" tattooed on your arse cheek." He shouldered into his cut and moved past her, out into the hallway. She grabbed her jeans and pulled them on, pulled her shirt over her head and followed him.

He was standing in the opened front door. He turned to her and his face was stricken. "This is not good. I've got to think about this."

"That's it? You're just leaving?"

He was silent.

"I'm not with Jax, Filip. You know that. If you're going to hold to some ridiculous covenant of brotherhood, of ownership-" she was crying now. "Well, then fuck you."

He nodded, took one step across the foyer tile to her and kissed her hard on the mouth, bruising against her lips, before he turned and was out the door. She stepped forward and slammed the front door behind him, rattling it in the jamb. She crouched down and covered her ears, blocking out the sound of the bike. Leaving.


	8. Chapter 8

She remained crouched on the cool tile for long minutes, trying to catch her breath, slow her heart beat. Finally she sat down and leaned back against the wall, thinking and feeling. The intensity of the scene between them was sharp enough to cut but with a furrowed brow, and deep holding breaths, she looked closer at the razor edge of it. He had not known her history with the MC, with Jax. And really how could he have, why would he have. Gemma had not, after all, welcomed her back into the Prince's life with open arms. There had been discord, there had been Wendy, and there had been Jax's preclusion to freedom he didn't really want but had convinced himself that he needed in order to wear the crown. She, herself, in all honesty, had tried to keep a distance between them in which SAMCRO didn't intrude. It had become impossible and that intrusion was ultimately what led to the ending of their relationship.

She rolled the back of her head hard against the wall, relishing the uncomfortable pain of it. It was time for searing truth, for honesty. Even without Filip, the months and years had counted down to this moment in which she had to shine light into all the dark corners of her psyche. She stood and began walking through the house, pulling up blinds, opening doors. She started a half pot of coffee. In her bedroom, she bent deeply into the mussed bedding and breathed in the scent of him, the remembrance of the long night they had shared. Smiling, she made the bed, trapping the memories beneath the heavy duvet, then took a shower.

In the kitchen, she sat at the table and began making a list on her smartphone. She called a realtor and scheduled an appointment. Before she left for work she walked back into the bedroom and closed her eyes, summoning the shape of Chibs' into her mind, his flesh between her teeth, the moment just before he entered her body and drove them both over an edge into deep waters that crashed them back onto the shore in ecstasy.

* * *

She was tired but not exhausted. Still riding a body high from the night before, flashes of his hands and mouth on her distracting her throughout the day, shaking her to her core until she finally gave into it, leaning heavily against her locked office door and bringing herself off with her own fingers, eyes shut, tongue running across the fronts of her teeth as she let her body heat rise with the memory of his fire.

Now she was home and she was betting everything she had on their shared coupling. Wagering on his own visceral need for her. She combed her long hair out of the French twist she had worn at work, changed into jeans and a burned out tee, bare-footed. In the kitchen she opened a bottle of dark imported beer and then she waited, sitting cross-legged on the carpet in the front room.

As soon as the sun disappeared over the suburban horizon she heard the bike. Slowly she stood and walked out the front door, beer in hand, heart thumping wildly inside her chest.

He had parked the bike and was now standing looking at her, wringing his gloves in both hands, the edges of him outlined in fading sunlight. She would not break his gaze, challenge and longing whipping between them, a small maelstrom.

"Can we talk?" he asked. His voice was ragged and torn.

She nodded, turned and walked back into the house. She pulled another beer from the fridge, opened it and sat at the kitchen table. He was standing, unsure, in the kitchen doorway, all bristling maleness. She pushed the beer across the table and he lowered himself into the chair, long legs kicking out before he boyishly tucked his booted toes behind the front chair legs. He drank deeply and then rested his elbows heavily on the table top looking at her beneath his lowered brows.

She waited. Her heart was steadily beating his name out in a rhythm of longing against the insides of her rib bones.

He shook his head and retrieved the ubiquitous pack of smokes, offered her one, then leaned across to light it for her. He sat back in the chair, smoking and sipping at the beer and still she remained silent.

She finished her beer and dropped the cigarette butt inside the bottle. The fire that he had quenched that morning began to smolder between them, his gaze was fast and growing heated, she could feel it on her flesh. She wanted to be consumed by his flames, lifting her chin, closing her eyes and remembering his tongue along the curving length of her throat. She watched him through slitted eyes as he downed the last of his beer, extinguishing his smoke as she had done. With slow and steady deliberation she slid her hand across the table top. He lifted his hand from the table, and palm to palm their fingers laced and he brought her knuckles to his lips. He stood and dropped to his knees beside her, his head in her lap, arms around her legs. She lay her hands on top of his head, smoothing the grey black hair, catching his ears in between finger and thumb. He stood quickly, surprising her, and bent over to scoop her up into his arms, an arm under her knees and one behind her shoulders, pulling her against his chest. He turned and made his way back into her room.

With one knee on the mattress he laid her down and began undressing her. When he had her nude, he stood back and looked down at her and she felt her body ignite. She licked across her top teeth. He lowered himself to the bed, between her knees, pressing his face against the heated core of her. She arched up into him, her spine becoming molten, his hands on her hipbones welding her to him. She rolled her head back, eyes closed and let herself be moulded into the shape he would have her be.

Her voice was pouring through her teeth, his name hardening on her tongue. He crawled up her shaking body, still in his leather. He wrapped her in his arms.

"Kiss me," she begged him.

He brought his hands up to her face, looking into her eyes. She watched as his eyes slid closed and he met her mouth with his.

They lay together until the grey evening became black night. She urged him to undress and he stood and quickly shed his clothes, then joined her beneath the covers.

"We need to talk about this," he said into the dark.

"Not right now we don't," she answered him.

* * *

She listened to him bang about in the kitchen. She climbed out of the bed and lit fresh candles. She dug through a bottom drawer of her bureau until she found a silk short and camisole set. She sat cross-legged in the middle of the bed waiting for him. She felt solid and substantial. Recrimination and regret had been burnt away.

He returned with beer and sandwiches, a sliced apple. They ate and still a silence enveloped them.

"Alright, you can talk now," she said.

He looked at her, a wry smile, a raised brow. He fed an apple slice between her lips. "I'm sorry," he said simply.

She nodded.

"That was out of line." He seemed to wait for her to respond but she remained quiet. "I lost my head." He tugged at his goatee, smoothing the moustache hairs down the edge of his upper lip. "I didn't know. But I should have, aye? I didn't want to know. And I can't unknow it now, right."

Still she watched him.

"Here's how it went. I love Jackie, but when you showed up, it knocked me out. It made no sense. This drop-dead gorgeous doctor, a fookin doctor, and Jax. Everytime I was around you, I could barely breathe. I didn't understand what you were doing there, with him. And before I could really work it out, you were gone. So much fucked up shite was going down, right. The Feds, Donna, the feckin Irish, and then Jax's bairn. You split and he never said a word to nobody. Nuthin'. Then the emergency room."

He sighed and reached for a cigarette. He looked at her. "I've met very few women like you, Tara girl. We fit together and that's rare as diamonds, aye." He looked away, cupping the cigarette in his hand as he lit it. "I wanted you for a long time."

She smiled, a mix of seduction and reproach.

"Wot?"

"You've never met a woman like me, Filip."

He smirked. "Gor, go down on a lass and it goes to her head, aye."

She squealed in mock outrage and climbed into his lap. He leaned back and stubbed out the cigarette and put down the beer. "You're buying me a fresh pack of smokes, girlie."

She straddled him and bent down to grab his ear between her teeth. "Say it," she growled.

He was laughing, pulling her tighter, deeper into his lap, grinding up between her thighs. "Say wot?"

She bit harder. "Say you've never met a woman like me."

"Never ever ever," he said and groaned when she reached down for his cock.

* * *

He was up on one elbow, tracing the fine bones in her face. The candles nearly done. "Tara?"

"Mmmm," she murmured.

"I know you don't like this, you don't want to hear it, and please, please, don't go off about it. But I gotta talk it out with him."

She turned her face away from beneath his fingers and he scowled.

"It's nothing to do with you. It's between me and him. Being straight with it." He grasped her chin and turned her head back, leaning down to kiss her. "They're out the end of this week."

She felt a cold breeze move through her ribcage, chilling her spine.


	9. Chapter 9

Early morning. Again. And she couldn't help but think back twenty-four hours. They hadn't really talked about the situation; Jax, the tattoo, SAMCRO, her personal history, and yet she felt relieved. In an inexplicable way, his presence was calming her, centering her. Empowering her. She felt completely accepted and deliriously wanted. She worried at her upper lip thinking it through. He was the most grounded person she had ever met. There was no question he was as taken with her as she was with him, and although she didn't have a lot of sexual history to compare and contrast to, she felt that they were connecting on a heart level as well as a physical level. She rolled up onto her elbow, looking down at him sleeping beside her.

He slept large, pressed against her, or holding her hand, or with an arm slung over her, a leg between hers. He was on his back now, slightly turned towards her, an arm over his chest, fingers curling into his palm. If she felt relaxed then he seemed nearly comatose. He was snoring slightly. She knew he was fifteen years older than she was, but he was obviously in a prime decade of his life. He was comfortable inside his skin, seemed to relish the limits with which he pushed his body. Large-boned, heavy, solid and extremely masculine. He was a modern day Viking, a displaced Celt. She considered her own Irish blood, even Jax claimed Celtic ancestry. Out-of-work Berzerkers, the lot of them. Poets with lilting tongues. Warriors who named their blades. Looking down into his scarred face was looking through aeons of those who had come before them. She leaned in and kissed his sleeping mouth. He stirred and reached for her.

"Just a minute," she whispered and quickly got out of bed. In the kitchen she fished through her bag and found what she was after.

Back in the bedroom, he had turned onto his side and was waiting, watching for her through slitted sleepy eyes. He smiled crookedly when he saw what she had and he rolled onto his back as she climbed back in beside him.

She fitted the earpieces of her stethoscope, breathing the cold bell warm, and then she held it against his chest. She closed her eyes and listened. Hard. His heart beating. The sound filled her head and her own heart began to beat in sympathetic time. She smiled and he laughed.

"How long I got, doc?"

She opened her eyes and looked down at him. "A lifetime," she said softly.

He motioned for the stethoscope and she pulled it off and handed it to him. He leaned up and she fitted herself beneath his arm, on her back. He pressed the chest piece to her flesh. His face intent.

"This isn't recreational for me, Filip," she said quietly not knowing why.

He moved the bell, listening, shushing her, then pressed it against her carotid.

"You probably need more recreation," he said, gently placing the stethoscope on the bedside table.

"You should be on an ambulance, saving lives," she told him. "You really seem suited to that kind of work, you know."

He nodded, squinting one eye and looking at her. "I got a job, darlin'."

She frowned. One-shoulder shrugged against his ribcage.

"Can I take you to breakfast?" he asked. "Drop you at work after?"

"Yes. Shower?"

He grinned. She pulled his head down, tracing the long thin scar on his left cheek from the corner of his mouth up to his ear with the tip of her tongue. With her hand on his back she felt his skin goose-flesh beneath her sensitive fingertips.

* * *

They filled the remainder of their first week together with long hours in her bed. Long rides on his bike. They went grocery shopping and stocked the kitchen. When she was alone she baked and when they were together they cooked. They didn't speak of the past, spin out the future, or probe at one another's secrets. They occupied the present fully and she was blossoming in his warmth and attention.

* * *

On Thursday evening, he convinced her to lay out quilts and bedrolls in the backyard and they lay side by side, staring up at the starry skies. Dimmed by the lights of Charming. Listening to the suburban neighborhood putting itself to bed. Dogs barking, cats on the prowl, a mother calling for a child. TVs blaring. Soon it all faded and he pulled her closer to him.

"Ya ever go camping?" he asked.

"Once, when I was a kid. My parents had a fight," she was quiet remembering the drunken shouting, "but I loved it. I wanted to disappear into the woods. You?"

"Not so much. Tented it in the army, of course. But not like auto camping, parks, and such. I like the sea."

"We should go. Sleep on the beach."

"Moonlight on the waves. Aye."

"The stars were so amazing, you know, when we went camping. I was awed. My father sat up late with me and he told me about the constellations. I wonder how he knew all that. We are so small."

"Aye. But our lives are so big."

* * *

They woke to the sound of a garbage truck in the street, dogs barking, and the smell of freshly watered lawns. In the house, she brewed a pot of coffee and they stood leaning against the counter, warm mugs in hand, looking at one another across an expanse that she knew was rapidly filling with hope and love.

"I want to tell you something," he paused, his expression was intent. "You're such a wee rabbit of a girl, tho, I dunno."

"And what does that mean, exactly?" She was laughing but feeling a prick of tentative anxiousness.

He put down the coffee and walked the few steps over to her, kissing her. "It's good, Tara. Stay calm. And that's what tha' means, aye? Your rabbit heart is just thumping crazy like and you've got that flight or fight thing going. But still." The look in his dark eyes was warm. "I do wanta tell you."

"Then tell me. Okay," she squeezed her eyes shut tightly, "I'm ready."

He stroked her face, pressing her hair back along her temple, kissing her eyelids. "Naw. I will but not right now."

She opened her eyes slowly, looking at him. It could be anything he wanted to tell her. She could not imagine. And yet, that was the problem, her imagination could run screaming wild into dark corners populated with monsters.

He was nodding. "I'm so sorry, luv, that someone busted your chops in the trust department."

She screwed her lips closed, she would not cry.

"Oh, darlin' girl." He wrapped her in his arms and pulled her tight against him. "S'okay."

She wept into his shoulder.

* * *

In the driveway, he was straddling the bike, fastening the helmet. She still had her cup of coffee in hand and was barefoot. When the neighbor across the way came out to fetch his newspaper at the bottom of his driveway, she had to smile to herself at how domestic she and Chibs had become. Out in the early morning air, saying goodbye, wishing him a good day. And yet, the dichotomy of the leather, tattoos, and motorcycle with the neighbor in his robe and the Honda in his garage was not lost on her.

"Things are going to be busy for me this weekend." He was watching the neighbor studiously avoid watching him.

She nodded. "Alright."

"I can't promise, exactly, when I'll see you again, Tara. As soon as I can. You know that. And don't worry yer head. You can text me."

She laughed. "But will you text me back?"

"Come here," he told her. They shared a passionate kiss and both of them heard the neighbor slam his front door.


	10. Chapter 10

At the hospital, Margaret found her on her rounds and they chatted briefly in the hallway.

"All of the paperwork, and my recommendation, have been faxed to them. I'm sure they will be in touch soon regarding an interview. I have no problem with you taking the time off to fly up there and talk with them. You should take an extra day and drive around a bit." She smiled sincerely, warmly. "I really think they're going to be so interested in you, Tara. Drive around, see what you think of the area."

She could only nod. The usual chaotic boat rocking on the sea that she herself had whipped into a dangerous frenzy. She was the great saboteur of her own life. Her stomach gripped uncomfortably.

Margaret was oblivious to her rising seasickness. "You know, you look fantastic, Tara. I've noticed it this week. You're positively glowing."

She smiled weakly. She had never been of the girlish ilk where she needed to share, tell others about her love life, taste a man's name on her tongue, gain approval, or entertain with sordid stories. She could just hear herself, _I've got myself another outlaw, the baddest of the bad boys this time, Margo-girl, and I'm riding high on dopamine, the sex is amazing, this man! This man! Drinking and smoking and cavorting. Oh, and the crying, let me tell you about how he sees me. He really sees me. By the by, can I get you to flow me the cost of two blood tests and could ya put a rush on that?_ She needed a drink, or a cigarette, or an hour alone with Chibs.

"Okay, then! Back to work for both of us. Would you care to join me for lunch in the cafeteria, Dr. Knowles? Say, one?"

"Sure. Yes. That would be fine. Nice."

She fled to the bathroom, digging her phone out of the pocket of her lab coat and texting him. MISS YOU.

* * *

A few sporadic texts, but not enough meat on the bone to fulfil and no call. She refused to worry or feel sorry for herself. She spent a long restless night alone in her bed. The next morning the realtor came and she listed the house. From the kitchen window, she watched him hammer a For Sale sign into the front lawn, a pile of contract duplicates on the table. It all made her tired and she tried to take a nap but ended up curled on her side, looking at the photographic print of the human heart mid-surgery. She knew she was the perfect psychological study. In love with the organ, the solvable mystery of its life-sustaining job, and yet frightened of the symbolic representation, fearing its magic, too damaged to love well, too broken to try. She berated herself without words, using the body memory of Chibs bone shaking in her embrace, panting against the skin of her throat, making of her name an age-old promise and prayer.

By late-afternoon she was climbing the walls. After months of being so alone, the week had wrecked her. She changed into hospital togs and joined the ER staff. Sniffly children, screaming babies, frail elderly, a mad man, a woman with an ectopic pregnancy, a frighteningly inebriated young man. It was the usual running to stand still. And she radiated in it. Late evening found her sitting bedside vigil with the drunk, debating pumping his stomach, watching the banana bag empty into his swollen veins. The paramedic who had brought him in was keeping her company while his partner filled out paperwork at the triage desk.

"Where've you been, Dr. Knowles?" he asked, surprising her out of her reverie.

"Have I been somewhere? I've been busy."

"You working a night shift?" he switched subjects.

"What? Probably." She looked sideways at him. They were close in age and he was classically handsome in an Eagle Scout sort of way. Crewcut, clear eyes, square jawed and tall and lean inside his uniform. She looked him up and down covertly, the midnight blue button down, the heavy canvas trousers, the black boots impervious to petrol, oils, and bodily fluids. He had shears stuffed in a cargo pocket, a stethoscope around his neck, and a large-faced watch ticking down life-saving seconds on his wrist. Chibs wore an uniform, too. Heavy boots, the leather cut, the shades, and the knives strapped across his chest. She knew he carried a loaded Berretta tucked into the waistband of his jeans. "You?"

"Night shift? Yeah, always." He was smiling, so open-hearted that she couldn't help but feel her own heart's blood warm slightly in response. "I could swing back by here in the a.m.. We could grab some breakfast in the cafeteria."

She narrowed her eyes. Was this the boy her dead mother would have wanted her to date? Marry? Have a family with? Was this the man her alcoholic father would have wanted to give her away to? She felt dizzy thinking of it. He was looking at her earnestly, a slight blush rising up his perfect cheekbones.

"Oh," she faltered, tripping over all of her thoughts. She furrowed her brows. "Thank you." Racking her memory for his name. "Troy, thank you." She smiled close-lipped. "I'm seeing someone."

"Yeah. Sure. Of course." He was backing out of the small curtained enclosure, looking over his shoulder for his partner, stepping sideways away from her. "Don't work too hard tonight, doc."

"You, too. Save some lives out there."

"I'll do my best."

And he was gone. She turned back to her patient. Stomach pumping it was.

At three in the morning her restlessness returned like a sickness. The long night was beginning to feel endless, as though the sun might have burned out while the earth was turned away. Leaning against the nurse's station, blankly staring into her unknown future, she began to feel overwhelmed. The possibility and potential of a new job, a new hospital, a new life. Selling the house, homelessness promising itself to her as though a birthright. The unexpected proposition by the paramedic. Absent Chibs and the work that was keeping him away from her. She felt the prickling sensation of panic begin to electrify her heart from the inside out. She quickly made her way for the ambulance bay doors and out into the parking lot. The late summer air was warm and intensely refreshing. She began to pace, her body needing to move, bone and muscle more sympathetic to her mind than heart and lungs. She pushed all thought away from her, dark and light, and just kept walking. The length of the drop-off parking lot, then the visitor lot, then the physician lot, and out onto the sidewalk. The night was still black, sunrise a forgotten memory from the morning before. She wondered how big the city block was and considered it, but then turned back into the main entrance, the well-lit hospital in front of her, the darkened suburban neighborhood behind her. She felt trapped between light and dark, angels and demons on both sides.

Suddenly, she heard the bike, recognized the throaty rumble of the Dyna.

She kept moving, if she had trainers on instead of the heavy clogs she knew she would be running. She listened as the motorcycle banked into the parking lot, turning behind her and into the visitor lot. She heard the engine silenced. Still she did not turn or slow. And then he was there, beside her, matching her stride for stride. She moved through another row of parked cars and made her way back out onto the sidewalk and decided, yes, she would walk the quarter mile perimeter. He kept pace with her and as they made the first corner she reached across for his hand. He squeezed her fingers, stepping up closer beside her and they continued forward.

His fingers were cool but his hand began to warm. The connection was solid and steady and an alternate current began to flow into her, out of his body, up her arm, and through her heart. She felt the panic subsiding, her breathing leveling out, and her strides became slower and more deliberate. They made the last corner of the block, the hospital entrance sign ahead of them. He tugged her to a stop and pulled her into his arms. He rocked her slowly, his mouth against her ear, the low cadence of his voice a male lullaby, his words surely Gaelic because she recognized none of them. She closed her eyes and let her body be filled with light.

Finally he stilled, one hand on the back of her head, holding her fast.

"What are you doing here?" she whispered, her voice breaking slightly.

"Taking care of you, aye."

She nodded into his shoulder.

"What are _you_ doing here, is the real question. Let's go home."

"Yes, yes. Please take me home."


	11. Chapter 11

He was waiting for her impatiently when she came back outside through the ambulance bay, the habitual wringing of his gloves. He shook his head when he saw her and with a hand on the small of her back he led her towards his bike.

"You're riding. We'll come back for the Cutlass in the morning."

At the bike, helmeting up, she impulsively went on tiptoe and kissed him. "I don't know how you did it, but thanks for appearing like my guardian angel."

"Went by the house looking for you. What's with the For Sale sign?"

"I'll tell you all about it later." His expression seemed unreadable. "Okay?"

He nodded and then she was seated tight behind him and as he accelerated out of the parking lot she felt herself become solid again, her heart beating in time to the rubber whapping of the tires on the tarmac, her lungs working with the wind whipping around her. She marveled at this. As an extension of the motorcycle, he was holding her together, keeping her from flying apart, losing her center. She wrapped her arms around him, cleaving herself to his back. The massive Harley beneath them, joining them in a kind of trembling ecstatic feeling of endlessness. There was no fear, no panic.

* * *

She had the front door key in her hand and he was right behind her. She had not left the porch light on and as she tried to fit it by feel into the deadbolt, his hand came around her body, his other hand steadying them against the door and he pulled her hard up against him, his mouth at the nape of her neck. His hand inside the waistband of her pants, fingers reaching down inside her panties.

"I missed you something awful, girl."

She felt the key slide home, felt his urgency against her hips. She turned the knob and let them into the foyer, dropping her bag, toeing out of the clogs, turning in his arms as he shut the door behind them.

"It was only one night," she said.

He had her against the wall, hands everywhere, his mouth hot on her throat, her face, beneath her chin.

"Tha' right?"

She was shimmying out of her scrub pants, he was pulling her top over her head. "It felt like forever," she gasped.

He found her mouth, all tongue and teeth. She reached between them for his belt, pulling it out of the buckle, unbuttoning the jeans, pushing them down over his hips. Then he was reaching down for her thighs, pressing her shoulders hard against the wall behind her with the crush of his body. She could feel how strong he was as he cupped her ass and she wrapped her legs around his waist and he groaned, a deep sound of pure lust. It shot through her ears and down the length of her spine, exploding in vibrant color between her legs. And then he was inside her, thrusting with huge movements of his thighs, bending knees, bracing himself against her, his forehead grinding into her collarbone.

"Oh, god," she moaned. "Fil, Fil, Fil." She could no longer control her voice, sing-songing his name, arching against him. Giving herself entirely over to him.

* * *

They were sitting on the floor of the foyer, clothing scattered around them. The digital clocks on the stove and the coffee pot in the kitchen acting nightlights. She was slotted between his knees, back to his chest. His jeans were twisted around his ankles. He was still breathing hard, arms around her, face down into her shoulder. She leaned forward, pulling at the jean material until she found one boot and began unlacing it. His fingers were tracing each vertebra in her bowed back.

"Taking care of you is becoming a full time job."

"Taking care of me?" she teased. "What exactly are you referring to?"

He laughed. She had the boot free and he was kicking out of it. She turned to the next boot.

"Well, aye, there's that, too."

She pushed the second boot off his foot, then tugged the jeans off him. The socks looked ridiculous, so she rolled those off as well. She turned and with a deft movement was straddling him, her knees up against the baseboard.

"Really?" He was grinning wolfishly at her. He hung his head sideways. "I'm knackered."

"No, you're not," she said, and began kissing him with deep French kisses. Tonguing out of the corners of his mouth, licking at his teeth.

"A'right then. But I gotta get off the floor, girl. I'm like a hundred years older than you and this is gonna cripple me."

She could feel his cock stirring to new life beneath her and she murmured appreciatively into his mouth.

"You're gonna kill me, Tara."

"No one ever died from fucking on the floor, Filip."

"I'm half-dressed here. But I'm thinking you like that, aye?"

She laughed then stood, steadying herself on his shoulders. He leaned between her thighs and bit the soft skin above her knee. Then he pulled himself to his feet.

"I'm starving," he told her.

She walked into the kitchen, flicking on the light. "I could eat."

He pulled his jeans back on but shrugged out of the cut, walking into the living room and dropping his clothing and accouterments into a pile on the carpet. She walked past him, down the short hallway, into the bedroom. She reappeared wearing a skimply silk nightshirt.

In the kitchen, she began setting food onto the counter. Dialing the stove top on, setting a fry pan onto the hob. They began working seamlessly together. Within quiet long minutes they had the table set with steaming plates of breakfast.

"So, that sign. And you walking off a panic attack. What's the story?"

"I want to sell this house. It's full of ghosts and truly terrible memories."

He nodded, eyes narrowed. "You leaving Charming?"

She looked at him, sucking her lower lip between her teeth.

"Fine. We'll get to that later. What about the hospital. And what were you doing there? You couldn't wait for me?"

"Wait for you? I didn't know you were coming by tonight. This morning, actually. You said all weekend. I had to get out of here. I don't stay here if I can help it."

"I shoulda called."

"Or texted."

He scowled. "Last night was hard without you. I got myself completely twisted."

She raised her eyebrows slightly.

"It was not good. Still feeling it in my head bone." He forked the rest of the eggs into his mouth. "Opie and Lyla got themselves hitched."

"Really?"

He nodded, a sideways movement of his head.

"Is that not a good thing? Poor Donna. I liked Lyla. Seems a bit soon, though."

"Things are heating up much faster than I would have thought possible. It's been a fucking madhouse for two days. These guys, they just brought mayhem. Mayhem."

She pushed her half-eaten food away from her, towards him. He indicated a piece of toast on her plate. She nodded permission.

"I don't want you in the Life, right. You don't want to be in the Life, I know tha'." He swallowed, looking at her, his eyes dark and broodingly serious. "This is going to be feckin impossible."

"Not impossible."

She stood and retrieved her bag, she tossed him a two-pack of his brand, cellophaned together.

"Oi, thanks. You're my guardian angel," he said, wiping up the last of the eggs with his toast. He pushed the chair back onto its rear legs and opened one of the packs. She sat back down and he handed her the lit cigarette, lighting another for himself. "About that."

"I don't want to talk about that. Really. Please."

"You're high maintenance."

"Like a girl from Diosa?"

He choked coughing, smoke streaming out of his nostrils. "Christ. No." He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. "I'm a simple bloke, Tara. I don't really take to complicated things."

She was nodding, smoking. "You take care of people, Filip. It's in your nature. You're far from simple. And you do like very complicated things, such as that Harley out front. The MC politics. You're good at complicated."

"I never had a complicated woman. Never took good care of any woman I did have, either."

"What are you saying?" She could feel her blood thicken, the wings falling from her feet, her trigger finger itching. He was calling out a fight response in her.

He stood, running the butt under the sink faucet, tossing it into the garbage, facing away from her. "I don't know what the fuck I'm saying." He turned walking back to her, pulling her up to her feet. She tossed the cigarette into the sink. He pulled her into his arms, hands on her hips, leaning back to look into her face. "You're making my life complicated. That's what I'm saying."


	12. Chapter 12

She was exhausted. And when they lay down together she reveled in how boneless she felt, how weightless. He pulled her to him and she lifted the sheet up over their bodies. She closed her eyes and listened to sleep call her. In his arms she let herself drift into oblivion.

Hours later she woke to his voice. He was in the hallway, speaking into his mobile. His words clipped and short, his tone tense. She felt the familiar fear settle into her guts, amazed at how it stung just as sharply with another man, another year, another relationship. It made no sense that she was willing to put herself through it again. She burrowed deeper beneath the bedding, curling into herself, wondering if it was, indeed, possible. If they could make it possible or if, as he had alluded, it simply was impossible.

She listened to him moving through the house, and then he was back in the bedroom, finishing dressing. Turning onto her back, she kicked the linens off her body.

"You're awake," he said.

She looked over at him. He was avoiding her eyes, her naked body.

"What is it?" she asked, wincing at the pitch of her own voice.

"Aye, you know what it is." He had his boots and socks in his hand and sat on the edge of the bed. "You planning on proper furniture in your new place?"

"In my cardboard box under the bridge? Sure."

"I don't even know what to say to that. My head ain't in the right place, girl."

"I'm sorry." They both knew she was talking about the fact that he had to leave.

"Me too. Fucken mule, pit bull, dancing bear. It's getting real old real fast."

She went up on her knees and wrapped her arms around him from behind. "You are coming back?"

He was silent, finishing with the boots. Elbows digging trenches into his thighs, head in his hands.

"I hate that I can't answer that. I hate it. Aye, I'm coming back, Tara. But I cannae tell you when."

She nodded against his back. "I know. It's okay. I'll be here. I mean, I have to work all week, but I won't split again, go back to the ER."

"You need the telly, or something like."

"Maybe. You want me to make you some coffee?"

"No time, luv."

He turned and scooped her up, pulling her across his lap, kissing her thoroughly. "I'll call you if I can. I will come back the minute I'm able to."

* * *

Margaret had accepted the invitation for the interview on her behalf. The paperwork was on her desk when she returned from lunch. Another post-it with an exuberant smiley face, and a link to JetBlue. She couldn't help but allow the small swell of affection towards her boss rise and roll inside her. They never spoke of her bad year, never referenced the physical turn it had taken. Her knuckles instinctively went to her mouth, biting softly into the skin stretched taut over the bone. She thought of it now, the horror of it, the shame of it. Funny how both Jax and Chibs had been such an integral part of her violent outburst. The pull she had on Jackson the push that she had made for Filip. Now with it all behind her, she dismissed the men and focused on the women, the pseudo-mothers. Gemma had so perfectly played the role of the bad mother, the devouring mother, and Margaret had and continued to be the good mother, the nurturing mother. Tara decided to consider her abhorrent behavior as simply the acting out of adolescence.

She shuffled through the sheaf of faxes. Interview questions, preparation, directions, hotel reservation, paperwork still needed, and even a timecard allotting her three days, two nights paid time. She sat down, opened her laptop and sent Margaret an upbeat email telling her she was on it.

* * *

He woke her just past midnight. She had given him her spare key. The light in the hallway was on and he was undressing in the shadows. She got up and lit a candle, turned off the hallway light and watched him hungrily.

He allowed her to make a slow feast of his body. Loving him with ravenous deliberation. She had to close her eyes, savor him. Feeling at the angles of his limbs, his spine, his ribcage, along the curving length of collarbone. Memorizing the limits of his skin, as though she was blind and he the full extent of her world.

Afterwards, he lay on his side, a lazy hand tracing her profile, her brow bone.

"I think I've had more sex in the past ten days than I've had in ten years."

"More good sex," she answered.

"I talked to Jax."

She reached up for his hand, bringing it down between her breasts, trapped between her palms.

"I didn't tell him."

"You didn't?"

"He said," he paused.

She could feel her heart rise up into the empty space between his words.

"He said, aye, that he had to make you leave. That it was the only way he could protect you."

"Protect me from what?"

"Oh, Tara girl."

"From what, Fil? His mother? From himself?"

"All that and more, probably. I think he's right."

Her heart began to trip hammer against her ribs. It hurt. "What?"

"I think he did the right thing by you."

"Screw that noise."

"He said it killed him. Killed something inside of him."

"Don't feel sorry for him."

"No?"

"No. Don't you see? He killed it." She was surprising herself with insight, the words making things clear so long after the fact. "He was willing to kill it because he loves SAMCRO, the club, above all things. More than anything else he ever had or has or could have. How does that work?"

"It works the same way tha' a soldier loves his country. A priest loves the church. How a fighter loves the hurt."

"That's a kind of illness."

"Then it's one we all got. All of us are infected with it."

"Don't say that. Please, don't say that." She swallowed hard. "It's a choice."

"Aye, it is," he agreed. "Tara?"

She heard the shift in his voice, felt the expansion of his presence into her bed, her life. She reached for him, he came into her arms, his face pressed to hers.

His mouth was against her ear. "I love you."

* * *

His mobile went off with the sunrise. For a perplexing moment, she pulled herself out of a dream in which the neighbor had a rooster that crowed with the sound of a cellular phone. The window was grey with early morning light.

He was cursing in his strongest Scottish accent and she smiled listening to him. Finally he had the cell and was disappearing into the hallway to take the call. She didn't envy whoever was on the other end. He sounded brutish. Hacking, coughing, barking into the phone.

Suddenly she remembered his proclamation of love. It was a coin tossed into the still deep well of herself, tumbling through the dark waters. The wish of it echoing in the chambers of her heart.

He threw himself into the bed, rubbing his eyes awake with the heel of one hand. "We should quit smoking. Do you even smoke? What are you smoking for? You're a heart surgeon for chrissakes."

"Was that the Surgeon General?"

He laughed. "Don't I wish. My mouth tastes like a feckin ashtray and I feel like I'm gonna cough up a lung."

"Smoking is bad for you," she agreed, kissing him. "You taste like whiskey more than ash."

"We should give that up, too."

"Wouldn't that be breaking some kind of Scottish law?"

"There's that." He rolled onto his side, hand under his head, looking at her. "You wanta get out of here? Ride over to the coast. Sleep on the beach?"

"Really?"

"Really really. I gotta get clear for a few days."

"You have to?" she asked, worried.

"Naw, not like that. I gotta get clear for my own self."

She knew she had to be in Washington at the end of the week. "Do you trust me?"

"To the ends of the earth." His look turned slightly suspicious.

"I have to fly out of state. For an interview. It's a good job." She rolled her eyes. "I mean, it's a great job. Things careers are built on."

"Okay," his voice had become hesitant.

"Come away with me. Two nights. Everything's paid for. The interview is on Friday. We would have Thursday night and Friday night and most of Saturday. Fly back that evening."

He pursed his lips, gaze shifting to the window, the morning light growing strong. He combed absently through his goatee with his fingers, licking the long mustache hairs along the sharp edges of his upper lip.

"Alright."

* * *

She was in her office, coffee steaming on the edge of her desk, paperwork and patient records spread in organized chaos across the top. She was body sore, in all the best places, and she smiled to herself thinking about how much sex she had been having in the last two weeks. She had never considered herself insatiable or needy and far from a sex kitten. Before Chibs. It was as though he had breathed hot on the thick carapace she had wrapped herself in, breaking her loose, drying her wings, encouraging the transformational metamorphosis that had always been a possibility for her. She felt more herself than she had since the cerebral days of medical school. More completely herself now. He accepted everything, trusted her completely, and that trust represented safety to her. She had not known that she was in longing for a physicality. A total immersion with another body that she had almost always denied herself. Control was the thing that held her together but now she saw that it had isolated her in a small space. And through the doorway of their flesh and bones, she had found a vast place that only the two of them could enter.

An unapologetic knock at the partially opened door pulled her from her increasingly heated thoughts of Chibs. She looked up and Jax was walking into the room.

The swagger, the smirk, the achingly familiar shy ducking of the head. It was like a full-body blow. She stood at once, hands covering her belly.

"Tara," he said. Her name a kind of secret shared.

She would not say his name. "Hello," she said instead, cautious.

She watched him process the fact of the desk between them, and he casually threw his long lean self into the chair on the other side. She looked at this comfortable behavior, breathed deep, and sat back down in her own chair.

"You look great." He sounded genuinely relieved, admiring.

"Thank you." The initial panic upon seeing him was rapidly fading. She realized that he had come in peace. "I feel great."

Nodding, appraising her, his hot gaze, the perfect bone structure in his face.

"You," she motioned at her own hair, "cut your hair."

He drew a quick, heavily-ringed hand over his shaved head. "Yeah." He looked at the window over her shoulder, shrugging. "Did a bit of time."

She couldn't decide if the shave made him look harder or just more the lost boy. She sighed. "Sheriff Unser told me about Abel. I'm so relieved. Happy for all of you."

His face registered a slight shock and she realized that he had not thought of his child, the kidnapping, or her in the same moment for a long time. "Uh, yeah. Of course. It's all good."

"What are you doing here?"

His face was closing slightly. He sat up straighter. "Not trying to start anything. Tara. I was thinking of you. I wanted to see how you're doing."

"You were thinking of me? Out of the blue? And you wanted to see how I'm doing? It's been almost a year."

"That long?"

"I wasn't doing well for months, thanks for asking, I guess. I'm good now."

He looked suitably abashed.

"I'm sorry about how all that went down."

"I believe you." She took a deep breath. "I was sorry, too, for a long time. But I'm not sorry now. That it's over, I mean. I am sorry that I pushed myself back into your life. I shouldn't have done that. I guess we both needed to know that this," she indicated both of them with a wave of her hand, "isn't good for either one of us."

"Yeah," he sounded doubtful.

An uncomfortable silence settled between them.

"I'm surprised, honestly, that you're still here. I went by your Dad's place. Saw the sign. You are leaving, huh?"

She nodded. Suddenly fearful and protective of her new life. Chibs. "You went by my house? Please don't do that again. Don't go there. Don't come here."

He stood and she recognized the quiet anger, the slow seethe.

She was standing too, sweat beading in the well of her spine. As though a precious shell had just been washed onto the shore of her life, she realized that he was the one from whom she had been running for years, not her life. She smiled at the discovery, at the realization.

He was watching her. "You seem different. Somehow. You've changed."

"I have. But not different. Not really."

"I miss you, Tara."

This made her inexplicably sad. She moved towards him and opened her arms. He hesitated and she was alright with that, too. When he came, he came hard and fierce but she held him until he softened in her embrace.

"I know, Jax. But you've been missing me since the day we met."

* * *

She finished the coffee. She stared at the paperwork. She looked back up to the doorway through which Jackson Teller had walked. She reached for her phone.

I LOVE YOU

Seconds later, it rang.


	13. Chapter 13

She answered on the first ring, smiling, her heart thumping wildly. "Filip."

"Tara," he said. "It don't work like that, sweet girl." His voice low and so rhotic, the alveolar trill so pronounced, that she knew his heart was in his throat. "You must tell me it out loud."

"I love you," she whispered into the phone.

* * *

She knew about the cut, the rockers, the reaper, the patches. Even when a brother wasn't flying colors, most had them inked into his skin, part of him, never to be taken off. She knew the statement club identification made, the challenge that accompanied each patch, the language deciphered by those versed in it. She understood, in theory, the subtle and the unsubtle politics of the club. So, she wasn't surprised when he showed up without the cut but she was slightly staggered at how feral he remained in jeans, boots, and a black shirtsleeve buttoned up over a wifebeater.

For all his MC ambitions and identifying insignia swagger, Jax had a touch of Abercrombie & Fitch about him. Chibs decidedly did not. She studied his face, the nasty goat, the frightening Glasgow grin, the eyes that could flash from calmness to murderous rage in mere seconds and she knew that even in a bespoke pashmina three-piece he would cut a foreboding figure.

Walking through the airport, she realized that, out of the context of SAMCRO, they were the unlikely couple straight out of a poorly written bodice ripper, the heart surgeon and the biker outlaw. With a slight start, she realized that most romances were exactly that kind of pairing. The good girl and the bad boy. She filed this predictable behavior away for a more serious introspective look later. She squeezed his fingers as they moved through the gate.

On the plane, he was behind her, crowded into the narrow aisle, hands lightly on her hips. A harried businessman was in front of her and he stopped without warning, lifting his carry-on above his head. "Excuse me," he said to her dismissively, his elbow sharply in her face.

Suddenly Chibs' arm was over her shoulder, grabbing the man's wrist in a hard and tight grip. "Excuse yerself," he growled, and she quickly ducked beneath his arm, moving behind him.

The man blanched and nodded a quick apology.

"Tha's more like it," Chibs said, pushing him loose and dismissing him with a sneer. He turned and reached for her hand and pulled her past the man, to where she indicated their seats.

"Wanker," he announced, taking both of their bags and stuffing them into the overhead before allowing her to sit in the window seat. "Jaysus, I need a feckin drink and we ain't even off the tarmac yet."

She thought of the pair of knives and the Berretta 92 left behind. Then she considered his fists. "You don't like flying?"

"Not much. No. Thought I'd already done all the flying this year I'd be doin' in a long time." He sighed. "A plane is worse than a cage. I cannae breathe, luv."

She nodded. "This is not like hopping the pond to Ireland. It'll be less than three hours. I'll hold your hand."

"Did you bring any drugs?"

She watched the woman in the seat across the aisle swivel her head in their direction. Tara rolled her eyes at Chibs. "That would be no. Did you have a particular scrip you wanted filled?"

"Whatever these straights are downin', tha' work for me."

She kissed him quiet.

Halfway there, several airline bottles of booze emptied, she turned in the seat, taking his hand into her lap. "Jax came to see me at the hospital this week."

She saw the slight narrowing of his left eye, the only revelation. "Tha' right?"

"He said, uh, he was thinking of me."

"I guess he was. I can imagine it put the hurt on him, too. You're something amazing."

She looked at him, overwhelmed at how in love she was falling, there seemed to be no bottom to the well. "It wasn't like this, Fil. What we had wasn't this."

He raised an eyebrow.

"I'm different. With you I'm different."

"Different good?"

"Yes. Of course, yes. Different so good. You're good for me."

He brought both hands up to her head, holding her face, pulling it towards him. He rolled his forehead against hers. "I think you could make me a better man, Tara."

She laid her head on his shoulder.

* * *

Once they had landed, he relaxed and through the sheer force of his comfort level enveloping her, she felt herself let go of worries, concerns, doubts, fears. It was as though they had stepped into another world, other existences. He held her hand always, or had an arm slung around her shoulder, her waist. She laughed and he smiled more than she had ever seen. Without the cut, he was more of a cautious novelty, the Scottish accent, a woman on his arm. She watched as people responded to him with open hearts and she marveled in these small interactions.

They rented a car at the airport. He stepped up to the counter and ordered a high-end convertible. She schooled her face. She was learning to enjoy whatever he offered without criticism or discouragement. His tastes ran to the eclectic and unusual, but always promised enjoyable entertainment. She was not used to being indulged or indulgent. The car was perfect. With the top down they headed for the bay. She luxuriated in the leather bucket seat and the cooler Pacific Northwest air on her face.

He found a seafood restaurant that also brewed its own beer and they sat in the bar, eating and drinking, for hours.

* * *

The next day they slept in, a rarity for both of them. He ordered room service and then, after she was completely sated, he drove her to the interview.

Another Catholic Hospital, a specialized pediatric unit, and a trauma center. The interview was over an hour long. She was humbled by the review Margaret and St. Thomas had given her. The team toured her around the surgical theatres, the pediatric floor, the maternity ward, and then their trauma center. Out through the glass doors she saw Chibs, leaning against an ambulance, talking with two paramedics.

* * *

That night the found another restaurant on the quay and afterwards they walked arm in arm to a small, dark bar. Beer and whiskey chasers. He taught her how to drink a boilermaker. A couple was dancing in the corner but he told her no, that's where he drew the line on his dignity. She stood, kissed him, and walked over to the jukebox.

He was seated backwards on a bar stool, elbows on the bar behind him, booted heels caught in the rungs. He was watching her dance alone, his head tilted, drinking. She was dancing for him. And for herself. Free. She had queued up the machine, books and books of older compact discs, with heavy bass-laden tunes from both of their youths. Two girls joined her, and she closed her eyes, swung her hips, hands high over her head, and let herself go. She knew he harbored no judgment, anything she could conceive of he would support. He trusted her more than she trusted herself. It was a safe feeling and such a relief that she wondered if she had ever felt so much safety at any time in her life. She was centering herself, finding the still point inside of her mind, her body following. Refusing to think or to feel, she wanted a physicality that she had almost always denied herself. Control was the thing that held her together, kept her flesh from opening and her bones flying away. But the music, the alcohol burn still in the back of her throat, far from home, and this man. He urged her to her center, wordlessly. She wanted to explode around the detonation that he brought to her. She wanted to disintegrate with him.

A man joined them on the floor, and had one of the girls in his arms, twirling her. The other girl found Tara with a hand outstretched and Tara took it, the skin warm and smooth, and they danced together, hips swinging, knees bending.

Two songs, three, and she looked over at him. He wanted her back beside him, she knew this. He held up her whiskey glass with a small nod. And she smiled at the girl and wound her way back through tables and chairs to him. She stood between his open knees and he kissed her hard, all whiskey taste and his eyes open. She turned in the grip of his thighs and watched the dancers.

Chibs was breathing, hot and heavy against her neck, his hands up underneath the hem of her shirt, flat on her belly, brushing with the tips of his fingers. He brought both arms up around her, locking his hands over her left breast.

"You're making me jealous and horny at the same time, doll. This old heart won't survive it." With an insistent hand on her head, he turned her face back to him and kissed her deeply. "You want to get out of here maybe?"

She nodded. "Yeah, let's do that."

* * *

The next day he drove them through vintage downtown neighborhoods, California bungalows, mail-order Victorians, brick apartment buildings. Coffee bars and grocers on the corners and small parks peopled with families.

"This would be a nice life," she said, no expectation.

"This what you want?"

She shrugged, watching the simple world flash by. "I don't think I've ever really wanted anything for myself. Outside of medicine. Once I began wanting that, I wanted it fiercely." She turned to him. "I had a miserable childhood, Fil. It put me off wanting a lot of things that most women, I think, do want."

He nodded. "Believe me, I get that."

At an intersection, two male bikers pulled up opposite them, shouting something at one another over the rumbling of their Harleys. She watched Chibs out of the corners of her eyes, he let his gaze run from boots on the ground, to the bikes, to the leathers and then as they passed by, she caught his eye in the rearview assessing the colors. He drove on.

* * *

On the plane home, he took the window seat. When the seatbelt light flipped to off, he lifted the arm and pulled her against his chest, mouth to her ear. She listened to him breathe; it was soothing and deeply comforting. She squeezed his thigh.

"Mile high club?" he asked and she laughed and laughed.

After a long time, the world below them browns and blues and greens, the horizon darkening into evening, he began talking. "Tara. I know you said this isn't recreational for you. But there is a game afoot, right? I mean, if they offer you a job, you're going. You've got the house for sale, nowhere else to live. Nothing is tying you to Charming any more. So, I need to know what you're playin' at, luv."


	14. Chapter 14

She was quiet for a long uncomfortable minute that became five, then six. She could feel him waiting. Finally she sat back in her seat, turned to him, searching his face, his gaze, the set of his mouth.

"Please, do we have to talk about that now? Here?" She shook her head, indicating the tight quarters of the jet. "Please?"

"No." Simple. "We don't have to."

"_We don't have to_ what?"

"Talk about it."

"That's not what I'm saying. We should talk. I wanted to talk before this all started. You told me it sounded boring. Dull. Whatever. You didn't want to. But now you want to."

"Thought you didn't want to do this here?"

"You're making me upset."

He raised his eyebrows. "You're making yourself upset."

"I'm not playing a game. I know we need to talk." She looked at him slantwise. "We haven't been doing a lot of that, have we?"

He looked out the window that was steadily blackening. "Nope. And I guess that's what this is. I should shut it and be happy." He sucked on the corner of his lower lip. "Get it while you can."

She sighed, exasperated. "Are we going to have a fight about this? Really?"

"This isn't fighting, luv." He looked back at her, then away again. "You'll know it when we're going a round."

"Fine. This isn't fighting. And you're upset and I'm upset now. And we're going to land and you're going to get on your bike and split. For the rest of the weekend. And you'll show back up in the middle of the night like that's cool and you just know I'm waiting and alone. And god forbid I should go into the ER and save some poor kid's life who drank himself into a coma because his girlfriend left him. I need to stay home like a good Old Lady. Even though I technically can't be your Old Lady because I once belonged to someone else, like chattel." She was hissing at him, striking at him with her words.

He was watching her, head tilted, brows drawn. "You done?"

She nodded and shrugged. Breathing in deeply through her nose and exhaling through her mouth. He reached for her and she shook her head.

He laughed and put both hands firmly on the balls of her shoulders, pulling her against his chest. He was much stronger than her stiffened spine. He moved one hand up to the back of her head, holding her fast and tight until she gave in and relaxed. "You don't shake your head at me, baby girl. Hush now." He shushed her, mouth buried in her hair.

"Don't. This isn't funny," she told him. He let her rear back in his arms and look up at his face.

"I'm not laughing," he said, pulling her back to him. He kissed her. "I'm sorry. We'll hash it out later. Look, there's the seatbelt light now. We're almost home. I'll let you take a swing at me when we're back on the ground, aye?"

"I might do that."

"Super. And there's you sayin' you don't wanna be an Old Lady."

* * *

Back in Charming and he was gone. Reluctant, but still she could feel his dissatisfaction with their conversation on the plane. He told her he had no choice in the leaving. He had to check in. But that they would talk, talk until they heaved if necessary.

She settled in for a long night and a Sunday that would probably also prove to be empty and vast stretching into its own night as well. For the first time since she was a teen-aged girl tangled up in the throes of love, she didn't want to be alone. Didn't relish it, hold onto it selfishly, and wait impatiently for it. Without him, she was fiercely lonely. And she wondered if he was missing her just as much.

Or if, instead, he needed down time, guy time, or club time. She knew SAMCRO was a lifestyle; they even referred to it as the Life. Capitalized. And part of her, the part that had outgrown her immature love for Jax, was dismayed by that. But asking him to leave it and adopt a lifestyle that was centered on her, them, create another life would be asking more than he could give. If anyone was going to make a concession it would have to be her. And she wasn't going to.

* * *

He surprised her the next morning. She was in the kitchen debating eggs or cold cereal when she heard his Harley. Her heart stuttered to life. She was out the door just as he keyed off the bike and toed down the kickstand. As soon as he had swung his leg over she was in his arms. He bent lower and with an arm around her waist, coaxed her legs up and around his waist, holding tight, while he unbuckled his helmet with his free hand. She was kissing his neck, his ear, the long scar on his cheek. Finally, he had both arms around her, and their mouths met.

Slowly she lowered her legs, feet back on the ground. "I can't believe you're here," she told him.

He took her hand and led her back into the house.

"Breakfast?" she asked.

"Please," he answered quietly, dropping his body into one of the chairs. "I'm feckin done in. Damn, it's good to see you."

She furrowed her brows at this, looking at him closer. Exhaustion seemed to be etched into his skin, the sagging of his shoulders, the slow drumming of his fingers on the table top. He smelled of gun oil, smoke, and something that could be blood if she considered it long enough. She chose not to, turning away and beginning eggs, toast, and bacon.

She poured him a glass of orange juice, set out plates and utensils, absently folding a cloth napkin, studying him. "Should I even ask?"

He was leaning back in the chair. "No. No, you shouldn't."

"Okay." She continued to work, feeling herself relax knowing he was there. As she moved around the kitchen, he leaned over and unlaced his boots, shrugged out of the cut, and the brown leather beneath it. He definitely smelled of something he shouldn't have. He would need a shower.

She piled his plate with food and sat down across from him. "Not quite like our room service and champagne breakfast."

He laughed. "Nope. But it's perfect. Thanks."

"I'm sorry you're so wiped out, Fil."

"Me, too, doll. I just need some food, some sleep, and you wrapped around me."

She smiled. "The club fresh out of crow eaters, I guess?"

He looked up sharply, but she was teasing him, and he smirked at her. "Right. I don't hold to tha'. Why would I shag some nasty gash when I've got a queen on my arm?" He mock shuddered. "I don't have to prove anything to anyone." He was watching her, the expression in his eyes filling with laughter. "Now gettin' head, tha's different. Aye?"

She had been nodding slowly, listening to him. But then she narrowed her eyes. A small smile playing at the corners of her lips. "Yes, of course! I am so glad you said that. There's this male nurse who's just been begging me to let him go down on me."

"Sure, luv. Female nurses, too. Orderlies, doctors." He cocked an eyebrow. "Paramedics?"

She blushed, studying her fingernails.

"There it is. A paramedic. Who is he?"

"You're ridiculous."

"I told you, you give yourself away, Tara. Your face."

She scowled at him, serious now. "I'm not seeing anyone and you know that."

"But there is this one toss-and-go driver who twists your knickers." He finished the last of the food on his plate.

"No." She stood and carried the dinnerware over to the sink, turning the hot water on, letting it play over her fingers.

"Nooooo. Oh. It's the other way round. I get that. What medic in his right mind wouldn't want to be slipping it to the young smokin' hot doctor?"

"Doubtful. You didn't seem to think scrubs were a sexy look." She stoppered the sink, squeezed in the soap, and watched the water fill.

"Girl, you'd be deadly in a burka."

She turned back to him, laughing. "I'm sure you have a bevy of women hanging around, too."

"A bevy. Absolutely. How many, exactly, is a bevy?"

"How many do you need, Filip?"

"I'd have to ask Tig for certain, but three? Four?"

"You go to Trager for sexual advice, huh." She turned off the faucet, wiping her hands dry on her hips. "So what? You're like the vanilla brother?"

He had to think about that for a moment and then he grew serious. "Call it what you like. I've had my fair share of freaky, but I'm more a one-woman-man kinda bloke, aye."

"Mmmm." She walked over to him and kissed him, until he lifted her onto his lap. "I know. I know that now. You're a romantic."

"No, Tara. I'm not. I have no right to this, to be here with you. I'm not a good man. I've done unspeakably bad things. Unforgivable things. I thought I was straight with all that. But this, whatever this is, it's screwing with me. Binding me up inside. I told you it's complicated."

She was nodding, cheek to cheek with him. "And you don't like complicated things. Then why don't we uncomplicate it? Make it simple?"

"How's that then?"

"Time for that talk?"

He scrubbed both hands over his face, shaking his head. "Yeah. It is. Past." He staggered to his feet with her in his arms. "But I gotta get some shut eye first, Tara."

"Alright. I slept like hell without you. Let's go to bed, lover."


	15. Chapter 15

She surfaces from sleep slowly, a languorous rising up out of the depths of dreams which is not commonplace for her. He is in her arms, forehead pressed against her collarbone, wrapped tightly as though she had rocked him out of a despairing wakefulness and into an obliterating, welcomed unconsciousness. And perhaps she had.

"Let me take care of you," she whispers down into his hair, lips against the curve of his skull, the bone beneath the flesh. And she thinks of the organic body, muscles, skin, the heart and lungs, organs and blood inside his veins. She knows mortality, the brief span of being alive. The fragility and the strength. But lives can become intertwined, limbs entangle, the single life elicits a bigger force, growing out of two matched lives.

She tightens her arms, and pulls him even closer. He adjusts and she can feel him begin to wake in her embrace and she smiles. She is lonely with him asleep. Scooting down in the bed, catching his leg between her thighs, she seeks out his mouth with her own. He groans awake, eyes shut tightly against the light, against the waking. Perhaps he wants to hold onto his dream lover, but she does not want to make love to him in the aether.

His arms snake around her waist, fingers deep in the well of her spine, sliding upwards, cupping her just beneath the wings of her shoulder blades. He is pulling her hard and fierce now. He is fully awake, she senses the shift, his own surfacing, the occupation of his mind inside his body. His body, her body. She wonders at all the artists and poets, the songwriters and painters who have decried this separation of flesh, the barrier of skin that prevents full immersion into another body. The inability to absorb, the undeniable fact of the individual. The measurable thickness of flesh.

His palms are warm, deliciously so, his thigh insistent between hers. His hands move back down and he grips her hips with a needful strength that takes her breath away. He is all sharp edges, flexing muscle, impossible bone and she no longer wants to flay their skins and blend their viscera, she wants the difference that marks him male and her female. She is panting for the impossible union, the astonishing joyous fact that their bodies work in tandem without words, without spoken conversation. And yet their hearts are in dialogue, she can feel the weight of the organ that powers her life's blood, he has made it heavy. Holding his body against hers, his hot breath on her breasts, the clever fingers ghosting her flesh, his teeth grazing the particular shape of the muscles that wrap her bones, all of this is solid and substantial. She feels her heart yearning for him and it is overwhelming. With no warning, he is inside her body. She begins to cry and he kisses her open-mouthed, licking at her tears, and she tastes the salt and sweat.

He brings one hand up to her face, covers her eyes. His name is the sound of weeping, the inescapable truth that they have been allotted a transient time. She is overcome, grateful for the fact that he has hidden her eyes, hidden her from the daylight, from the world. He presses her head sideways, his body is on fire, she is dry tinder beneath him, and he is igniting her. She wants to feed herself into his hungry flame.

His mouth is against her ear and he tells her how much he loves her. Now and forever. Her last coherent thought, before she becomes ash, is that forever can only be the sum of both their lives, the unknowable beatings of their two hearts. It is enough, it is more than enough.

* * *

"You alright?" he asked, his voice quiet, rocking her against him, slow, small movements of both their bodies.

She knows that if she allowed herself, she could descend into a blue warm darkness that would swallow her for hours, a kind of drowning by delirious sleep. She breathed out of that place and opened her eyes, nodding. "I am. Yes."

He slowly released her and climbed out of the bed, returning with a lit cigarette and a bottle of beer.

"What time is it?" she asked, sitting up, mashing the pillow behind her back.

"Half three."

"You were tired."

"You were tired," he counters, opening the beer and settling in beside her, handing her either the beer or the smoke, her choice.

She took a long draw off the beer, shaking her head at the cigarette. "I thought you were going to quit."

"Quitting isn't the problem, aye? It's staying quit."

She laughed. "Okay. I honestly don't care if you smoke, Fil. One cig a day or two packs. But it would be nice if you lived a long life. You know?"

He looked up at the ceiling, blowing a perfect smoke ring, then another. He got back out of bed and returned without the cigarette. He threw himself down next to her, crossing his ankles, fingers laced behind his head. "How long and for what reason?"

"For love. And until one minute after I go."

"Go where?" He smiled and closed his eyes. "Ah, shake off your coil." He leaned up on one elbow and she handed him the beer. "When's this happening?"

She shrugged. "Not for a long, long time. We'll be old. Ancient. With grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Living in one of those small bungalows we saw yesterday."

His brow furrowed. "You've decided that's what you want?"

"Why not?

He shook his head, his eyes very serious. "Why?"

She gave him a puzzled look, twisting her lips sideways. "What do you mean 'why?' Because that's what people do. I want that with you. With you. I would be making so much money, Fil. We could live off that until you find something you want to do." She looked away from him. "You could be a paramedic. It's only a four month course, a test, licensing."

"You think I could pass a live scan, Tara? Fingerprints? A background check?" He was incredulous. "You're dreaming."

"Maybe," she whispered. "There might be a way. You don't know."

"I do know. I do. There's not."

"Why are you being like this?"

He raised an eyebrow. "Like wot exactly?"

"So negative?"

"I'm a realist."

She changed the subject. "I can't believe that was yesterday."

"Right. I can't either. It's as if I'm living some kind of double life."

"That's not good."

"No, it doesn't feel good." He finished the beer. "You wanta go for a ride?"

She nodded. "Yes. Always."

* * *

They were in the driveway, standing beside the motorcycle. He was looking far down the road, tapping his gloves into the palm of one hand. He turned to her, his face all hard angles.

"We have to be," he hesitated, looking at her, "careful now."

"Careful? Of what?"

He sighed. "All the boys are out. It's not like before. We could run into any one of them. And it wouldn't be good."

She pursed her lips. "I'm not even going to discuss that. Some primitive male ownership thing. That's caveman stuff and I just can't. I'm sorry."

His expression had grown dark. "It's how it is, Tara. Whether you hold to it or not."

"Well, I don't. And I don't like it. And, frankly, I'm surprised you're okay with it."

"I didn't say I was okay with it. I said it's the way that it is." He was growing angry.

"What exactly are you afraid of?"

"I'm not fucking afraid of anything."

"Then what are you," she paused, searching for a better word, "concerned about? Jax's feelings?"

His body had gone frighteningly still, the viper before the strike. She backed up a step. "Or maybe it's not Jax at all, but yourself. Your own standing with the club."

Still he was silent. She could see him turning this over in his mind, his eyes had narrowed an imperceptible degree, but she saw it.

"It's my life, Tara. My god damned piece of shite life."

"Then maybe it's time for a new life, Filip."

With a quick and angry motion, he slapped both his hands on top of his head and walked away from her. Long strides down the driveway and into the street. He stopped facing away from her, pulling his head down. Then he was looking skyward, arms loosely at his side, the gloves still in one fist, rolling his head on his shoulders.

She could feel herself filling with a strange mixture of rage and sadness. She sat down on the cold cement, watching him and waiting for him.


	16. Chapter 16

He turned back, pulling his gloves on, looking at her, his face wounded. She smiled at him and watched as he closed his eyes and exhaled. He walked back up the driveway, straddled the bike and rolled it down into the street. She stood, slowly, unsure. He turned and held his hand out to her, sunglasses in place. He didn't want to be seen and she was fine with that for now. She fastened the helmet and joined him, taking his hand, settling herself behind him. The bike, his bike, had become as familiar a thing to her as he was. The slope of his back, the curve of the fender, the flexing of his thighs, the rumble of the engine beneath her, the swiveling of his head as he checked the street, her feet on the pegs, the pause before the throttle was opened. Her fingertips brushed the denim low slung on his waist. She leaned away, brave and fearless, so sure of him, his body acting shield, buffeting the wind back to her as though it were a caress.

She closed her eyes, leaned forward, wrapping her arms around his waist. They were flying.

* * *

On the outskirts of a dying railroad town, he pulled the Harley into another pioneer graveyard. A city cemetery and she could see the old Victorian statues, the pea-gravel walkways, and the leaning marbles. He took her hand and led her through the turnstile gate. They walked the main thoroughfare, then he cut them across a wide swathe of battered grass, headed for a small copse of Southern Magnolias. He ducked beneath the largest, and sat, back against the gnarled trunk, wrists on his raised knees. She sat beside him, the feminine curl of her body towards him.

"What is it with you and cemeteries?" she asked, pulling her fingers through her knotted locks.

"I like 'em. When I first got to Cali I couldn't believe how new, how plastic and shite everything here is. Where I come from you can go to mass in a church whose stones remember the Vikings. The oldest thing here are these graveyards."

She was nodding. "I was surprised when I was in Chicago to realize how little American history this state truly has. The architecture especially."

"Aye. Everything here is disposable. And that's how we build our lives, as though it's going to be rubbish some day."

"That's harsh."

He shrugged, looking past her, a broken headstone, the jagged edges of the break long worn smooth by time and weather. "Besides, cemeteries keep my feet on the ground, ya know?"

She shook her head.

"I can get my head muddled with too much thinking. The buried dead remind me that it's all temporary. Each one of us is going into the ground, and when that happens all the shite that kept you awake nights sweating your balls off adds up to nothing. A six foot deep hole of nothing. And look how peaceful all these lives are now." He swept one hand around him.

"But isn't the good fight about staying alive?"

"If you're a doctor, sure. It is. If you're an outlaw, you know it's inevitable. Each morning that you wake back up you just count as another lucky day in a short life. Death becomes your friend, not your enemy."

"Filip." She went up on her knees and leaned into him, kissing him, close-mouthed. She settled herself closer to him, taking one of his hands and drawing it into her lap. "What is wrong? Why are you in this dark mood?"

He closed his eyes, shaking his head, rolling his lips between his teeth. He sighed.

"Tell me."

"This is a waste of fucking time. You. Me. This. And we need to walk away from it. Both of us. Before the hurt gets any worse. And it's going to hurt, like fucken hell."

She looked away from him, his expression too painful to study. She tangled the fingers of both hands in and around his hand, tracing the lines in his palm, the ridges of his knuckles, the riotous dusting of black hair on the back. She took a deep breath and began speaking. "Why, Filip? Because you've made a pledge to the MC? This could be your life. I could be your life. Us. A life that would give you so much more than SAMCRO ever could. It's a choice and I understand that. And you're the only one who can make it. Choose me, choose this. You know that this is a good thing. A rare thing. You've said it yourself. Why throw it all away because of the club? Can the club give you a better life? A family? Security? Love? Don't answer that because you and I both know the answer already."

"I've made myself unforgivable, Tara. I've made my life a mess that can't be sorted. I've killed men, hurt dozens more. Last weekend I killed more than one man. More than one, do you get that? I cannot be washed clean. Maybe I was thinking I could have a better life, a different life. But I just don't see a way out of this."

"You just leave. Can you see that?" She shook his hand free and stood, pacing back and forth in front of him. "You just walk away. Not every leaving has to be a blood-letting, Fil. Violence. I know that you're convinced it is that way, vengeance, death, destruction. Millions of people live their lives without ever breaking like that."

He stood now, leaning with his back against the tree, arms crossed over his chest, shaking his head.

She stepped close to him, holding onto his forearms tightly. "Tell me what the MC is for you. Not last month or ten years ago, but right now today. And tell me the god damned truth."

"Guns. Kicking head. And now drugs. Fucken Clay and Jax and the goddamned Cartel. I know I'll be dead within five years. Or locked up for life."

She felt thin, fragile, breakable. She could feel a hot panic rising inside her; she could not remember that she ever felt solid, substantial.

Suddenly, he unfolded his arms, reaching towards her and wiped her face dry with the backs of his fingers. "Don't cry, Tara. Don't cry."

She shook her head, her lips sealed shut. She hadn't known she was crying, but could feel the tears now breaking over the edges of her eyes, running down her face. She was moments away from sobbing. "I can't help it. We could have so much."

He pulled her to him and she folded herself against his chest, his arms around her shoulders, his mouth pressed against the top of her head. "I'm not worth crying over, baby girl. Believe me when I tell you this. I'm not worth someone like you begging me to stay. I should be struck down, here where I stand, for even ever having touched you."

"That isn't fair. You are not judge and executioner of your own life." She stepped back, looking at him, biting her upper lip hard. "Fil, I'm not innocent either. I killed a man and ripped up the rug where he bled out." He let his hands fall away from her. She watched his face, brows furrow in confusion and slowly smooth into resignation. "SAMCRO has done this, ruined so many lives, so many men. And you need to believe me when I tell you that. God only know why we've been given this small opening. But we can squeeze through and get clear. We can start over, together. We need to be selfish."

"Selfish? I'm not made like that."

"Then do it for me, Filip. Leave the MC and come start a new life with me. For me."

He nodded, eyes squinted nearly closed. She could see him turning this over in his mind, feeling at the shape of it, the weight of it. Then he took her hand again and they began walking. The cemetery was acres large and they took each path, each small road, hand in hand, until they arrived back at the gate and the sun was beginning to set.

"You wanta go get drunk?" he asked.

"It's a Sunday night."

"Does that mean yes or no?" He smiled.

"Yes."

"Brilliant. Let's hit Catfish Charlie's. So I guess we can't get too legless cuz the bike, right. We'll have to teach you to ride. Then I'll be pillion."

"I don't want to learn."

"Tha's good, cuz I don't wanta ride bitch. Let's go."

* * *

Later that night, he lay snoring on his back beside her. She turned onto her side, scrunching the pillow beneath her head, watching the shadow of him in the moonlight, listening to him breathe. She forced her mind to empty itself of all worry and thought. When she finally drifted into sleep, she dreamt that they were buried together in the same casket, entombed in the cold earth. He reached for her and she pressed herself up beneath his arm, holding him close as he held her tight. He was wearing a morning suit and she was wearing a wedding gown, and in the dream she was filled with happiness, overwhelmed by a feeling of safety, the two of them locked together in time. For eternity. In the dream, she closed her eyes and slept.


	17. Chapter 17

Afterwards, she would think of it as the calm before the storm.

The brief shining interlude where everything is light grey and the sky is so close you can reach up and touch it, run your fingers through the silver of it as though it were heated mercury, letting it bead on your flesh until it runs off and pools at your feet. The air is crackling and warm, your bones become lined with electricity and every touch sparks a tingling between bodies, limbs, hands, lips. And if you don't take cover, you risk losing your footing. The world is not required to shelter you. Left exposed, you become soaked until your skin becomes rain proofed. Lightning seeks you out and you raise your arms to meet it. The rivers break their banks and the winds bend the trees until their limbs grab for dirt. The storm carries you away, battering you through the deadfall. And then it's over as quickly as it started. The sun returns to shine through the clean air.

You begin searching through the wreckage. For things that remind you of the life you lived before.

* * *

They reached a silent agreement to simply not discuss it again. In their addiction for one another, their desperate need to ride the high each one so willingly provided the other, the strung-out hours to be endured when they were apart, the total dissolution into one another when they were together, the elephant in their room was reality. The monkey on their backs was the masters they served at St. Thomas and Teller-Morrow. The operating theatre and the clubhouse were the shooting galleries where they took their own private trips.

One evening, making dinner, he stopped, standing as though afraid he would come unmoored in the middle of the kitchen floor, he hung his head.

"Fil?" she asked, uncertain.

"We've been carrying on together, wot now? A month's time? Little over?"

She stayed quiet, watching him process something, reach for some small truth.

"People don't just tear their lives down and rebuild because of really really great sex."

She smiled, she knew him so well. Understood his hesitations and fears. His incredible longings. They were mirrors of one another. "People do much more for so much less."

"And arsy versy, as they say. Or vicky verky."

"Who says that?" she was laughing.

* * *

She was offered the job. She accepted, standing in Margaret's office, on the telephone, shaking so hard that Margaret rose from her chair to hold her hand while she talked. When she hung up, they hugged and she knew that it was good her surrogate mother bird was launching her, she was ready to fly. Feather a brand new nest.

She texted him and was not surprised when she did not hear back.

When she arrived home, the bike was in the driveway and a dozen roses were wrapped in paper lying on the kitchen table. She found an old vase of her mothers, filled it with water, and one at a time placed each flower, marveling at how fragrant they were. She found him in the shower and he pulled her in with him, fully clothed. She was laughing and then she was kissing him and telling herself tears looked the same as water. She closed her eyes and he kissed her face dry.

They were going to go out to dinner, to celebrate, he said. She watched him methodically pull his clothes back on, the cut thrown on the bed.

She surprised him with a dress. He smiled, crooked, boyish, approving.

He was buckling his belt. "I don't wanta wear that."

She knew, without asking, he was talking about the MC colors. She nodded. "Okay. That's okay. You want to go to Catfish Charlie's then?"

He shook his head, one hand on the vest, fingers tracing the insignia. "No. Let's go to Oakland, do it up right. No one's going to be where I want to take you."

"Alright, Filip."

He pulled her into his arms and rocked her for a long minute.

* * *

They took the Cutlass and talked about the car, the San Francisco Bay Area, Scottish highlands, haggis, Irish motorcyclists, and the original Hells Angels of the 1970's. He pulled into the parking lot of a high-end seafood restaurant on the wharf, and handed the keys to the valet. He came around and opened her door and she took his elbow and smiled up at him. She felt overwhelmed by happiness.

He asked for and was given a window table. They looked out over the lights of the slipped fishing trawlers, the City in the distance, and the bridge. An evening fog was rolling in.

"I love you," she told him.

"We love each other, darlin'."

They continued with the light banter of before. She found herself wondering, between obscure subjects, if they would ever acknowledge the earth newly shifting beneath their feet.

They lingered over dinner; he finished the turf part of her surf and turf. He was drinking beer and she was on her third glass of wine and could feel the flush of the alcohol in her system.

She leaned across the table to whisper loud. "We should go home and never come out of the bedroom."

"Tha' right? Never?"

"Never." She finished the wine in her glass. "I'll bring the roses in and we'll watch them bloom and then fade."

He was looking over her shoulder for the waiter and another glass of wine when they both heard Gemma say something, Clay answer her, and Jax laugh. She locked her gaze onto his and felt her heart dry itself of all the blood in each of its pounding chambers. It shriveled inside of her body and she thought she might retch. His face was unreadable and yet she saw everything there. The beginnings of time, the endings of all things.

The group of them walked around the corner and Jax was the first to see them, catching her eye, smiling with recognition before looking across at Chibs, his face falling slack.

She looked away from the confusion in his expression. Watched Chibs lean himself back in the chair, feel out the pose, and then decide, instead, to stand. Jax backed away from him, a dangerous step. Clay and Gemma were flanking his right side.

"What?" Jax shook his head, closed his eyes, and then looked from Chibs to her and back to Chibs. "What the hell is this?"

Gemma elbowed her way between the two men, a tight smile on her face as she looked at the two of them. "Well hello! Chibs. Oh and Tara." Her voice was a smear of sound, the twang of her fake trailer trash talk springing outwards. "Look at you two all cozy." She wrinkled her nose dramatically. "What's this? A date? Pretty expensive digs, Chibsie. You gonna get your money's worth later?" She was sneering at both of them.

"Where's your cut?" Clay asked and his voice was a whip lashing out at Chibs.

She stood and backed herself between the chair and the window. Her hands were shaking, her legs were shaking. She wanted to push past them and run through the restaurant out the door and into the dark night. Run until she reached the edge of the cement pier and fall into the cold waters of the bay.

Jax stood frozen, his eyes slits in his face. "Tara?"

She shook her head at him. She realized now that everything Chibs had tried to warn her of was true, there were no words that could ever explain this to him.

"I don't understand. What going on?" His voice was rising in volume, lowering in male pitch. "Someone had better tell me what the hell is going on!"

"Jackson," she began but Gemma cut her off.

"I'll tell you exactly what's going on, Jax. This little bitch is finally showing her true colors. She's a manipulative gash and she's using Chibs to either get back to you or," she paused, her hands on her hips staring Tara down, "or to get back at you. Which is it?"

"This has nothing to do with you," Tara said to Jax, refusing to look at Gemma.

"That's fucking hard to believe."

"Why would it be hard to believe? We haven't seen each other in a year! We're over, I'm over you."

"We just saw each other last week."

Gemma turned her head sharply to Jax. "You just saw her last week?"

"Mom," he held up a hand. Realization dawned on his face and he turned a venomous look on Chibs. "Ah, I get it. I get it now. You were asking me about Tara because you're fucking her. How long has this been going on? The whole time we were in Stockton, brother?"

"Watch yourself, Jax," Chibs growled taking a long step forward, pushing the chair hard enough to knock it over. Clay stepped in between them.

She could see the wait staff gathering in an uncomfortable group, patrons staring open-mouthed at the unfolding scene.

"You come here without your cut? That's serious shit, Chibs, and you know it." Clay was deflecting.

"Fuck the god damned cut," he said to Clay, "and fuck you, Jackie." He had turned to Jax, his voice a sharpened knife, his hand raised, pointing at him with two fingers. "You don't know half what you think you know."

Gemma gasped.

"I'm going to kill you," Jax threatened.

Chibs ground his jaw sideways. "Oi? You're gonna kill me, Jackie-boy?"

"No!" Tara said, stepping forward now. "Jax, stop. This isn't about you. None of this is about you. I'm not trying to get back with you or back at you. I don't even think about you."

"Stay out of it, Tara," he said.

Gemma had taken a small step towards Tara. "You're such a predictable crazy bitch. What are you doing, Tara? What are you doing with him? You need another bad boy to lick your cunt?"

Tara's mouth fell open. "Shut up. You just shut up, Gemma. I'm a crazy bitch? You're the queen of crazy and bitches." She turned to Jax. "And you're a pathetic little boy letting your mother talk to me like this. What is wrong with you, Jackson? Grow up!"

Gemma's arm came back and she slapped Tara full force on the side of the face. Instantly, Tara pulled her own fist back and hit the older woman in the mouth. Gemma leapt at her, knocking her sideways, over the chair, and both fell hard. Gemma straddling her, pummeling with both fists, screaming incoherently. Tara kicked upwards and Gemma went sideways, bumping the table, plates and cutlery and glasses raining down onto the carpet. She scrabbled in the breakage and grabbed a fork, stabbing at Tara with it.

The scuffle became a tangle. Clay reached down and hauled Gemma up by her arm, pushing her, shaking her loose, behind him. Her hair was torn wild, she was screaming obscenities, dropping the fork. Jax had gone down on one knee beside Tara. Chibs was down on his heels on the other side of her. She had a hand pressed to her temple and was slowly sitting up.

"Jaysus," Chibs said and reached behind him for a napkin in the mess on the floor. He pulled her hand away and pressed the cloth against the side of her face.

"What?" Tara whispered to him, her eyes closed.

"Shhh," he hushed her. "Let me see." He peeked under the napkin. "You're going to need some sewing."

Behind them, Clay and Gemma were fighting, loud and ugly. The manager had approached them and was informing them that he was going to call the police.

Tara folded herself into Chibs' arms, between his knees, as he squatted beside her. He had one hand on her shoulder and the other on the make-shift bandage, cradling her head against his chest.

Jax turned a frantic gaze on Chibs. "She's really bleeding."

"Aye, Jackie. Your mother is apeshit crazy. Why don't you just stand up now and get the fuck away from us?"

Jax pulled himself to his feet, looking down at Tara and Chibs then looking over to where Clay was peeling bills off a wad in his hand and counting them out into the manager's palm. Gemma was sitting in Chibs' up-righted chair, her hair hanging in her face, breathing hard. Jax took the three steps over to her.

"Did you stab her with a fucking fork, Mom? What is wrong with you?"

"Hey, son." Clay turned to him. "Not here." He turned back to the restaurant manager, gruff and in charge. "We're leaving."

Chibs was standing and helping Tara to her feet, urging her to keep pressure on her temple. He leaned over for the chair, and sat her down into it gently. He picked her purse up and handed it to her. She looked at him. He was taking deep breaths, eyes focused on the reflection in the window, before turning away from her.

"We're outta here, but you know this isn't over," Clay said to him through clenched teeth.

"Oh, it's over," Chibs answered.

Gemma was standing, unsteady, glaring at Tara who was challenging her in return. Tara stood and Gemma began towards her until Jax reached out. "Stop, Mom. Just fucking stop already." He turned to Chibs. "Do you remember me telling you that I was protecting her?" His voice was low and angry. "Get her home, man, or to the hospital. Take her away from here. Far away."

Chibs nodded, hooded glance slowly moving between the three of them. "Right. Come on, Tara." He put out his hand and she slipped hers into it and they left.

* * *

The next morning she woke slowly. He had insisted she take a Vicodin and wash it down with a large glass of Scotch when they finally returned home.

She reached up and felt at the bandage on her temple, remembering the stitches, the suspicious looks on the faces of the emergency room doctor and nurse at the hospital that was decidedly not St. Thomas.

She sighed, skirting the hard edges of the scene at the restaurant. She smelled roses and looked over to where the bouquet was on the bureau. Chibs must have moved them into the room after she fell into a drugged sleep. A slip of paper was leaning against the vase.

Confused, she rolled to her side. She was alone in the bed. She listened for the shower, the sound of frying eggs. The house was heavy with silence. She sat up, looking around, regretting the haze inside her brain. Slowly she climbed out of bed, not wanting to see the note. Refusing to see it, looking away. She padded down the hallway and used the bathroom, leaning into the glass to look at the bandage, wanting to peel up the edge of it and inspect the doctor's handiwork. Chibs had demanded the plastic surgeon be paged, refused to let the trauma physician touch her. They waited together in the exam room, he rubbed circles into her knuckles with his thumb but stayed mute.

She considered a shower, she felt strangely dirty. Unclean. Fouled. She turned on the hot water, the small room filling with steam. She stepped under the spray and then lowered herself to her knees and began to sob. She didn't need to read the note in his boyish scrawl to know what it said. She covered her face with both hands, the water running hot over her head, soaking the bandage, the wound stinging. Her heart swollen as though it had been cut and sewn.


	18. Chapter 18

The realtor phoned her with an offer. She would have preferred to meet him at her office in St. Thomas. It had respectability and with her lab coat on and stethoscope around her neck she had the authority to muddle through just about anything, without tearing herself into small pieces. But he told her it was time-sensitive paperwork. She could not stall him, so he came to the house. She attempted to dry her wet hair before he arrived, put ice packs on her cry-swollen eyes, press gently at the bruised skin around the white bandage.

Standing again in the clammy bathroom, she studiously avoided her reflection this time. She could not help but remember combing out her hair, standing glistening wet and nude, and how he had come up behind her, the dark specter of desire and male lust in the mirror, surprising the breath out of her. The shock of that had electrified each one of her nerve endings. He must have known because he moved quickly, without pause, slipping his arms around her waist, steadying himself on the sink, pushing her hard into the porcelain, her thighs bore blue bruises for days, fisting his cock and pressing himself into her body, grunting against her spine, and she had exploded around him. Then she raised her lowered gaze to the mirror and watched him come to his own completion, his eyes closed tight and his mouth smiling against the flesh of her shoulder.

She began to shake, grabbing for a washcloth, and sat on the lid of the commode pressing the cold fabric to her eyes. She would not cry anymore.

* * *

With multiple signatures and initialing, she sold the house her mother and father had bought before life unraveled them both, as though they were nothing more than thin thread wrapped on skeletal spools. She didn't want to touch another human being but the realtor shook her hand, all jagged shark-toothed grin, and then he was in his Prius and gone. She wanted nothing more than to walk through the house and smash every single window to throat-slicing shards. But she didn't.

Instead, she got the bottle of expensive single malt, and a half-empty pack of his brand stashed behind the toaster, and sat in the backyard drinking and smoking. She stumbled back into the house and pulled a bedroll out of the closet and returned to the backyard where she lay down, curled around her injured heart, and fell, like a body falling from a bridge, into a drunken slumber.

* * *

Her cell was ringing. With a heartbeat as slow as a funeral drum, she read his name on the screen.

"Filip?" she asked, her voice shaking with trepidation.

"No, Tara. It's Jax."

"Jax?"

"You need to come down to the clubhouse and get Chibs."

"What's happened? Is he okay?" Her voice became a broken whisper. "Please tell me he's okay."

"He's going to be fine. But you need to take him home. Are you coming?"

"Yes, of course. Yes. I'm on my way."

The phone went dead in her hand.

Her head was pounding, her mouth a dreadful dry tomb, her veins filled with uncomfortably hot blood. She swallowed two painkillers, drained the drinking glass once, twice, three times. Avoided her reflection and wondered if she might be walking into a trap. She narrowed her eyes, thinking about this. Back in her bedroom, she opened her panty drawer and fished out the small handgun in the back. Loaded. The weight of it in her hand a frightening thing, it wanted her to hurt someone, it was a steel promise made in the darkest part of her soul. She shivered and shoved it back into the corner of the drawer slamming it shut. The note on the bureau slipped and lay flat on the surface. She pulled it towards her with shaking fingertips.

She read it, squinting, read it again and then smiled. She felt simultaneously a fool and elated.

If SAMCRO was setting a trap for her, they would soon see the terrible damage a captured she-wolf could inflict if her mate was threatened.

She opened the drawer and tucked the gun into the waistband of her jeans.

* * *

She pulled into the Teller-Morrow lot, parking the Cutlass beside the clubhouse. It was so different and yet so very much the same. Two men she didn't know were sitting at the picnic table outside the front door. Inside, the lights were low. A man raised his hand when he saw her and she walked towards the group of them beside the bar. It was Kozik and Trager. Chibs was seated on a bar stool and Kozik was holding a blood-soaked rag to his face, Tig had what appeared to be an ice pack on his neck and with his other hand splay-fingered on Chibs' forehead, was tipping his head back.

Both men nodded at her and she stood very still, taking deep controlling breaths. "God, tell me it's not a gunshot wound." Trager shook his head. "Is it a laceration? Teeth? Nose? What?"

Kozik pumped his free hand at her, palm to the floor, the universal signal for dial it down.

"Tara's here," Tig leaned down and told Chibs. He was answered with a low grunt and an exhalation of pain.

She moved forward quickly then, reaching for his knee. His hand came up and found hers and squeezed hard enough to hurt.

"Let me see," she told Kozik and he lifted the rag. "Ouch," she winced. It was a broken nose.

"It won't stop bleeding," Kozik told her, lowering the rag again.

"Well, the ice was a good idea. Is that ice?" she asked Tig, who nodded. "We may need to set his nose and maybe cauterize." She put a hand on Chibs' shoulder and ran it up to the side of his neck. "Baby, I'm here. You're going to be alright now."

"He's also blind drunk," Jax said from behind them. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

She nodded. "Tip his head back a little more. Like that, yeah." She leaned forward, into Chibs' face. "I love you," she said loudly and clearly. With conviction. Then she turned and followed Jax into the chapel.

"Did you do that to his face?" she was irate and frightened, her stomach turning upside down, her mouth flooded with adrenalin.

"Yeah. I did." He pointed at his own face and she startled, realizing that his left eye was swollen shut with a gash butterflied on his cheekbone. His lower lip was split, blooming a deep purple.

"I don't understand."

"He wanted to be punished." He was looking at her intently, turning his good eye towards her.

She gasped. "Don't you dare say that. Don't you dare."

He inclined his head apologetically. "I'm not saying he needed to be punished, Tara. He came looking for me. I don't think he needs to be punished for anything. He won. He got the prize. A royal fucking flush and I didn't even know he was playing." He paused. "He was the better man."

She covered her face with both hands, willing her body to let the anger and the fear go, drop away from her, a coat outgrown, threadbare, useless.

"Tara. I know you don't want to hear this. I know you don't need to hear this. But, I love you. I will always love you. And yeah, I get that we're not right for each other. We both stepped too far away from one another to come back. I've made my peace with that."

She looked at him, breathing out, calm now. His knuckles were scraped raw and she felt her heart fly to Chibs. The violence the two men had wrought on one another; the broken friendship, the crushed bones, the opened veins, the desiccation of brotherhood. Both wounded forever. For a brief moment she wondered what scars each would bear.

Jax continued, "You have to believe me when I tell you that I want good things for you. Last year, when all that went down, I felt I had to protect you from this." He waved his hand helplessly indicating himself more than the place in which he was standing. "I'm sorry if I hurt you, but I felt like I didn't have a choice. And I'm so fucking sorry that my mother did that to your face." He looked over her shoulder, out into the clubhouse where Chibs was seated. "You and Chibs. I don't know. I don't understand it entirely but I guess I don't have to."

She nodded and started to speak.

"Let me finish. I want you to have a good life. A happy life. Whatever that looks like for you, I want you to have it. And I know that more than anything, you need to feel safe. I don't know any man who's more solid, more loyal, safer than Chibs. He's stronger than you or me." He closed his eye. "He's a good man."

She was overcome, nodding, and wiping under her eyes with the heel of her palm.

Jax's expression had grown sad, his voice labored. "We're straight here, okay? SAMCRO. Chibs. He can leave. No hard feelings. You oughta take him and get away from Charming, get out of the state, start fresh. Make the life that you want. He wants it, too. Be happy. Both of you. Live the good life. You deserve that, Tara. And so does he."

"Thank you, Jax," she whispered. "Thank you."


	19. Chapter 19

**Endings are hard. And we've arrived at one. I will miss my regular readers and I thank each one of you for being here! **

* * *

It hurt her to hear him sleep unsoundly. Painful exhalations, small moans that would wake her from her own tossing and turning dreams. Dreams in which she could hear him calling for her and she could not find him.

Finally, early morning came, waiting for the sun to rise enough to cast the bedroom in light, she got up and lit a candle. She stood looking at him, lying on his back, the sheets sweated and twisted around his hips, the white bandages crisscrossed over the set bridge of his nose, the deep black shadows of his eyes. She went to the kitchen and returned with another dose of painkiller and an ice pack. She bent down beside him, a hand on his shoulder whispering his name. He came awake furiously and she said his name louder, firmly, and he calmed with her voice.

"Aye?"

"It's time for more pills. Here." She helped him up on his elbows and handed him the pill and the glass of water. He swallowed and groaned. "Oh fuck, that hurts."

"I know, I know it does." She sat beside him, pulling her legs up to sit cross-legged on the edge of the mattress. "I have ice."

"No."

"Filip. Yes. Your eyes are going to be so black and blue as it is. Please."

He was quiet and she folded the ice pack back and forth in her hands until it creased and then placed it over his nose.

"Fuck," he groaned again. "Kill me."

She smiled. "Okay. How do you want to be put out of your misery? A brick to the head? Gunshot? Poison? Tortuous hours of lovemaking?"

"All of the above." He raised a tentative hand to his forehead, fingers ghosting between his eyes. He laughed low. "Christ A'mighty."

"Give the meds time to work. Then you can go back to sleep."

"Get me the whiskey."

She frowned. "Later."

"I cannae stand this ice, right?"

She put the ice pack on the bedside table and began untangling the bedding, pulling up the sheet, the thin blanket, tucking it around him. Then she lay down beside him and he turned slightly towards her, his eyes slitted open, watching her. She could see him beginning to relax. She brought both hands up and gently cradled his face between her palms. He closed his eyes.

* * *

"He's so adorable. Spry," the hospice nurse said after the bedroom door closed behind him.

"Adorable? Spry?" he asked, frowning.

"I didn't mean that to sound, you know, cute or disrespectful. I'm sorry."

He looked at her. She seemed very young for such an old job. "It's okay. It's just, adorable? Sure, he's eighty-eight years old, but he was fierce when he was younger. We were all scared of him." Her eyes widened at this. "I mean, not scared, like, we weren't abused." He corrected himself, stumbling over the emotions and the words. "He was a great father. They were great parents. We had great childhoods. That's a lot of greats, but yeah. He didn't take any shit and he was just incredibly strong. In every way. The boys looked up to him. Our sister adored him."

"I understand." The nurse nodded, her brow furrowed. "You seem like a really happy family."

"We are."

She smiled at him, then grew serious. "It's close now."

"I know."

"They're so in love."

"They've always been like that. The whole world could disappear and they'd be okay as long as they had each other."

"It's amazing to see him with her. I feel like I'm intruding when I have to go in there." She indicated the closed bedroom door with a tilt of her head.

He laughed. "We all feel like we're intruding when they're together."

"I can't imagine a love like that."

"No?" he asked, looking at her closer.

"I think it's pretty rare."

"I think you're right. It's funny, but I'm not even the age he was when they got together."

She looked at him again, her expression distant and thoughtful.

"Hey." He knew it was time. "You want to take a walk across the street to the park? There's a pair of nesting swans at the duck pond," he laughed at this, "and early this morning I saw them out on the water with their cygnets. You don't get to see that every day."

Her face opened, but then she frowned, looking back at the closed bedroom door. "Oh, I can't, really. I need to be here."

"It's okay. We'll just be gone long enough to see if the babies are out for a swim." He lowered his head, looking at her directly, his eyes clear, his mouth set but the corners trembling slightly. "He's in there with her. Everything will be okay."

She watched him for a long moment, considering. She mirrored the tilt of his head, smiling sadly. "Everything's going to be okay."

* * *

"All of them at once?" she asked, her voice hoarse.

He nodded. "Aye." With a hand behind her back, he helped her sit up. She tried to cup the pills in her palm but they shook free. He gathered them out of the bedclothes. "I'll do it, luv." She opened her mouth for him. He handed her the glass of water. "Here, darlin'. Drink as much as you can. Tha's a good girl."

He settled her back down against the pillow, pulling the sheets up around her, on one side and climbing in on the other. He took her into his arms, she came bone-thin, paper skin. He held her gently, her hands curled together on his chest. He reached for one and tangled their fingers together.

"We drove it 'til the wheels fell off."

She nodded. "It was a good life."

"The best."

"Do you think they're going to be okay?" She had winded herself and he waited through the weak dry coughing.

"They're going to be fine." He gentled his gruff tone. "This has nowt to do with them now."

"I know."

She slipped one hand down to his belly and found the cold metal of the handgun he had tucked into the waistband of his trousers. "I'm sorry," she whispered, then tipped her face up and he kissed her.

"You got nothing to be sorry for. I love you more than life itself," he told her, kissing the side of her head, the thin white scar on her temple beneath his lips. "You still here?"

She nodded, choking out small laughter. "I love you."

"We love each other," he answered her, habitually.

She pressed her head harder against his chest, listening for his heartbeat.

His arms were filled with her, her life. Quietly, quietly, quietly he said, "Every leaving is a blood-letting."


End file.
